


Crossfire

by DejaVu22



Category: Naruto
Genre: A large majority of the time, Akatsuki - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anbu Uchiha Sasuke, Blatant ignoring of canon, But I refuse to abandon the plan, But Tobi fails, Canon divergence post naruto, Gen, Good Uchiha Itachi, Good Uchiha Obito, Good Uchiha Sasuke, He's not exactly sane, I just don't know when I'll update the plan, Kamui time travel, Kisame didn't help, Kisame is a boss, Protective Uchiha Sasuke, Sasuke grew up with Tobi as his main mentor, Sort Of, Tobi tries to be a good sensei, Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto Friendship, Uchiha Sasuke Returns to Konoha, Uchiha Sasuke-centric, but he still tries, but he tries, good doesn't necessarily mean not an asshole, i have a plan, sorta - Freeform, uchiha itachi is a shitty brother
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2019-08-29 15:41:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16746811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DejaVu22/pseuds/DejaVu22
Summary: Following the events of Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke never makes it to Orochimaru's hideout. Instead, he is waylaid by a one-eyed man named Tobi, a man possessing a Sharingan, a terrifying dual personality, a penchant for always being late, and a single-minded mission to stop the Akatsuki in their tracks.When Sasuke runs into Naruto again years later, he must ally with his old teammate in order to protect him from the Akatsuki, while keeping him out of the two man war Tobi and Sasuke have started against the dangerous organization.





	1. A New Hope

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! First Naruto fic here. It's going to be a big one. I have a plan.  
> One of the biggest problems I have with the Naruto-verse is Obito's motivation for following Madara's plan. His reveal as Tobi would have been the most boss thing too me... if it wasn't all for a girl he had a crush on. Sorry, but no. Obito is resilient, and I think it's pretty clear that, given the right push, he wouldn't continue to follow Madara's plan for long. So here's the push. And here's the result: The Uchiha solving their own problems instead of just throwing overpowered temper tantrums. Gasp! Impossible!  
> Anyway, please tell me if you enjoy this fic and where I'm going with it. I'm really excited to finish this, but support goes a long way in helping my motivation for completing it faster. Comments, kudos, and bookmarks are a balm for my soul and help my fingers type like no other. I hope that this fic is enjoyable to anyone searching for a non-idiot-uchiha fic. Peace out and enjoy!

Naruto doesn’t have much experience dealing with ANBU.

He knows that ANBU would often watch his house when he was little and keep an eye on the Kyubi. He remembers Haku impersonating a Kirigakure ANBU when he rescued Zabuza. Jiraiya mentioned precisely once that Kakashi may have been in ANBU at some point in his life. And that was the sum total of his experience in dealing with the shadow organization.

Really, Naruto had never thought he would ever want to get closer. They operate strictly in the shadows, even more than other shinobi. The tasks that Naruto had heard they were involved in… it made him shudder, sometimes. Disposal of bodies. Looting of bodies. Dissection of bodies.

Of all the things to get hung up on about the workings of ANBU, body snatching seems rather ridiculous, but Naruto couldn’t get over it. It just seemed so… petty, for someone so supposedly amazing as the best of the shinobi.

This particular ANBU had a stunning repertoire of surprisingly specific insults regarding snakes and snake-like men. Naruto notes at least three that he would love to use as he punched Orochimaru in the face, so he thinks he can forgive him for any past body snatching he might have been involved in.

He takes a step out of the treeline to help the ANBU—Kirigakure, judging by the symbol etched on the mask’s forehead—but Yamato’s extended arm stops him before he can make his presence known. “Captain?” The normally blank-faced captain’ brow is furrowed deeply, his attention locked on the battling ANBU with a look that is equal parts suspicion and curiosity.

“Let’s wait to see what happens,” Yamato offers as explanation. Naruto looks back at the ANBU, currently slicing the head of a four foot long snake with a wicked sword, and concludes reluctantly that the ANBU seems to have the fight enough in hand for them to wait.

The ANBU seems more annoyed than threatened by the dozen or so snakes surrounding him, dodging the striking attacks with graceful dexterity and decapitating each one in flourishing ease. He (judging by the voice, the ANBU is male, but really, who can ever tell completely) doesn’t bother with ninjutsu, simply sticking to a kenjutsu style completely unfamiliar to Naruto. Konoha shinobi that used weapons generally used short tantos or other easily hidden weapons.

Two swords, as far as Naruto knows, isn’t really the norm for someone meant to be sneaking through the shadows on a regular basis. The ANBU is using two swords, a longer one that flashed elegantly on the attack and a shorter one the ANBU keeps closer to himself in defense. Each movement is completely fluid, completely at home with one another, and Naruto is reminded of a dance with no partner.

It is…

“Amazing.”

And,  _ oh shit _ , he just said that out loud.

It draws the judgemental looks of his entire team, including that creepy bastard Sai, and Naruto feels heat creep up his neck.

“Huh,” Sakura laughs, her lip curling into that special brand of  _ Naruto blackmail _ she loves to use. “Naruto has a sword kink. Who knew?”

Yamato, the traitor, snorts. Naruto directs the most hurt and betrayed look he can muster at the team captain before leveling a glare at Sai that says very clearly  _ Not a word you creepy bastard _ . The pale shinobi doesn’t take the hint, and deadpans at Naruto.

“Compensating for something, dickless?”

Naruto lunges at Sai, very much ready to strangle him to death with his own headband. A hand snags Naruto’s collar and pulls him back. “Naruto, not now.” Yamato, the bastard, doesn’t even both trying to mask his amusement.

Naruto shrugs Yamato’s hand off of his shoulder and scowls at Sai. The pale bastard is lucky they have more pressing matters to deal with.

Like the ANBU Naruto completely  _ isn’t _ attracted to.

The ANBU who has finished his fight and is currently prowling the clearing and methodically burning every snake head to crispy ash with great prejudice.

And really, that adds another fifty points onto Naruto’s opinion of the man.

He makes a decision right there, and strolls out of the tree line.

“Naruto, get back here,” Yamato hisses, at the same time Sakura says at a much more regular volume, “Naruto, you idiot, he’s an unknown!”

“Relax, I just want to talk. And I’d say those insults about that snake bastard puts him pretty far on my good side,” Naruto tosses over his shoulder. Sakura cuffs him over the head at the snark, but she stays right by Naruto’s side as they approach.

The ANBU’s head whips up, his sword rising between them defensively, and then freezes. There’s a tense breath, and then— “ _ Holy shit. _ ”

Admittedly, not quite the reaction Naruto was expecting.

______________________________________________________________________________

Two years ago, Orochimaru developed an interest in a Konoha genin with a Sharingan, a Tragic Past™, and a power complex the size of a mountain. Two years ago, the genin left the village with Orochimaru’s lackeys with the intent to gain enough power to kill his older brother. Sasuke and Naruto then beat the shit out of each other, before Sasuke stumbled away from the aftermath, leaving his best friend with a fist-sized hole in his chest.

The irony?

He never even made it to the snake’s hideout.

He was waylaid by a one-eyed man wearing a bright orange mask and a truly bewildering split personality.

Flash forward two years, he is faced by his old teammates without an ounce of recognition in either of their eyes, and all he can do is stare because this was  _ not  _ part of the plan when he split off from Obito three weeks ago.

Naruto is tall now, mature in ways that he wasn’t back then. Still attached to the ridiculous orange though, it seems. Sakura, too, has matured into someone beautiful, but he isn’t fooled enough by her looks to be distracted from the pure strength and  _ danger _ lurking beneath her skin.

Holy shit.

Naruto’s eyebrows shoot up, and Sasuke realizes that he said that out loud, and he really needs to go, now, before he says something else stupid, because his brain is definitely not working the way it’s supposed to.

“I’m Uzumaki Naruto,” Naruto says, taking a step forward.

That’s Sasuke’s cue to bolt. His limbs are still stiff, still numb, though, so he only manages a single step back.

Naruto freezes, lifting his hands in peace again, and doesn’t the idiot understand that shinobi are dangerous even without a weapon in their hands, and that a show like that means nothing?

“We aren’t here to fight.”

No, apparently they’re just here to give him a stroke.

“Why the fuck are you here?”

Shit, he said that out loud too. Mouth, meet foot.

One of the unfamiliar shinobi, who Sasuke had peripherally noted approaching from behind Team 7 but not actually registered ( _ stupid _ , could get him killed), speaks up, his voice as deadpan as his metal-plated face. “It seems that question is better suited for you, Kiri ANBU.” He tilts his head slightly, and fuck but that is creepy. “You’re a long way from home.”

Technically, he’s closer than he’s been months, but then again, Konoha never quite felt like a home to him.

It registers, then, that Sasuke  _ is _ in fact wearing a Kirigakure mask, and that the assumed presence of a Kiri ANBU so far into the Land of Fire’s borders could start an international crisis (Sasuke may have little love for some of the people in Konoha, but he’s learned enough to know that a  _ war _ was not the solution, and, if nothing else, that it would only make the Akatsuki’s job ten times easier).

“Orochimaru,” he says. Finally, something comes out of his mouth that isn’t digging his own grave. Nice and vague, easy to make assumptions with.

In contrast to the beaming smile Naruto sends Sasuke’s way, the unfamiliar man’s frown only deepens. “Orochimaru is Konoha business.”

Sasuke can’t help but laugh at that. “Orochimaru has made enough enemies that he’s everyone’s business.”

The man’s lips twitch upwards before going stone cold again.

“We’re here for Orochimaru, too,” Naruto says, sliding past the unknown man with a grin still lighting his features. “So I guess we’re on the same side, huh.” The extended hand doesn’t really register for Sasuke until several moments pass, and Naruto and Sakura are exchanging bemused glances as he stares down at it like a strange creature.

He has spent way too long in a forest surrounded by nothing but insane missing-nin, birds, and snakes that want to kill him.

Feeling sheepish, but refusing to show it, Sasuke sheathes the katana and wakizashi (promising fervently in his head that he will be sure to clean them thoroughly later), takes Naruto’s hand in his own gloved one, gives it a brief shake and then takes a quick step back.

“My name’s Haruno Sakura. It’s nice to meet you, ANBU-san,” Sakura chirps, a dangerous smile that was neither warm nor  _ completely _ malicious splitting her features as she also steps forward to shake his hand.

_ She was trained by Tsunade _ , Sasuke remembers after taking her hand. She squeezes it just to the point of pain, a clear warning of  _ I will grind your bones to dust and stuff it down your throat if you betray us _ , and then steps away neatly, still smiling like an innocent princess. He resists the urge to shake out his hand afterward, and can’t help but  be impressed by the intimidation tactic. She’s grown up.

“I’m Yamato,” the man says, merely inclining his head while refusing to take his eyes off of Sasuke. Sasuke decides that doesn’t dislike the man, even if he was creepy as hell.

Creepy doesn’t even begin to describe the fourth member, who also steps forward for a handshake. He is pale, approximately Sasuke’s age, wearing the fakest smile Sasuke had ever seen, and without a doubt one of Danzo’s puppets. “My name is Sai.” Sasuke’s eyes narrow as he scans the boy, much less willing to come within three feet of him than he was Naruto or Sakura, but he can find nothing immediately threatening about him, and Naruto and Sakura are giving each other looks again. With reluctance, Sasuke takes the boy’s hand, shakes it as briefly as possible, and steps back again.

Creepy-boy-probably-not-actually-named-Sai doesn’t seem all too offended about the plague treatment. Instead, he just tilts his head, the creepy smile still on his face, and says, “Are you going to offer us your name, ANBU-san?”

Sasuke blinks, and his mind grinds to a stop. It seems like common sense to have come up with a fake name before all of this, but Sasuke’s brain was still running in circles. Once again, he blurts out the first thought that comes to his head.

“Obito.”

Fuck.

_____________________________________________________________________________

“I’ve been tracking Orochimaru for several months now,” Obito tells them, rolling a tattered map out within the light of the fire.

That, at least, Yamato doesn’t doubt. He glances over the dirt and blood practically covering the ANBU from head to toe and can’t help but wonder if he had had a shower in any of that time.

Showering wasn’t a priority on long-term missions like these.

Still, Yamato knew at least a few Suiton techniques that could work in a pinch.

Then again, he internally sighs, Obito wouldn’t take kindly to that, and Yamato would hate to lose this new wealth of information that Naruto has uncovered.

Obito’s map is extensively detailed, with personal notes of scrawl over entire sections of Fire Country. Yamato cranes his head to read one, and finds it written in code. Unsurprising, but still disappointing.

On the upside, the circles around certain areas are rather obvious in nature.

“He has several bases, obviously, spread throughout the entire continent, not just Fire Country. But he usually lingers here, especially recently.”

That strikes a cord. “Recently? Why?” Yamato probes.

Wry amusement colors Obito’s tone when he replies. “Well, Suna’s still pissed at him for the Kazekage incident two years back. Ame and Kiri are dangerous for other reasons.”

It’s concerning that Obito groups those two together. A small, wartorn village like Ame and his own bloody village of Kiri. Was it possible there was an alliance between the two, or some other collusion? Was it a slip of the tongue on Obito’s part, or an intentional misdirection?

“Also, he knows Fire Country the best. If he’s being hunted, then he most likely wants to do it on his own turf.”

That rings oddly. “Being hunted,” Yamato repeats.

Obito doesn’t even bother to look up when he answers. “Considering I’ve been on his tail for over four months, yeah, being hunted is a pretty accurate description.”

The flippancy would have fooled anyone less experienced. The kid was a good liar, which could be expected from an ANBU. But Yamato had spent years in Root, and even more in ANBU. He was a paranoid bastard at heart, and despite the brushoff, he can tell.

Orochimaru was someone else’s target as well. Someone… bigger than a faceless ANBU, possibly.

Yamato debates interrogating him for more information, but brushes the idea aside quickly. He’s too good of a source of information to scare away.

Obito looks up at Yamato searchingly, and he realizes that he probably didn’t hide his suspicion as well as he thought he did. Yamato holds the stare without blinking.

Finally, the ANBU looks away. Instead, he directs his attention toward Naruto. “I plan to kill Orochimaru and fry his remains. That doesn’t mess with your mission, I hope.” Well, that was frighteningly deadpan, though not all that surprising considering the shinobi’s origins.

Naruto, in fact, seems to like the idea a lot, if the toothy grin is anything to go by.

“We’re actually looking for someone he took. You have our full support to slice him to pieces.”

Well, Tsunade won’t be happy about that certain proclamation, but Yamato isn’t necessarily going to correct him at the moment.

Obito shifted. “Do I get to know the name of this ‘someone’ or is that ‘Konoha business’?” If that wasn’t mocking, Yamato would do laps with Gai around the village.

For the first time, Naruto hesitates. Yamaton can’t necessarily blame him either. The rumors drifting around Sasuke’s name for the past year… haven’t necessarily been the most encouraging. He’s more ‘lackey’ than ‘kidnapped victim’. Still, even Yamato had to admit that it would be rather difficult for Obito to give them any useful information without a name.

“Uchiha Sasuke,” Yamato finally answers.

He can’t see the ANBU’s expression, but he doesn’t exactly look happy about the reply.

“That should make your mission easy then.”

That’s not ominous at all.

“Uchiha Sasuke isn’t with Orochimaru.”

“Huh?” Naruto voices that question quite eloquently, in Yamato’s opinion.

Obito’s shoulders are incredibly tense, like he knows that his information won’t be taken well.

“Isn’t with him as in he’s staying in a different base? Is he a prisoner?” Sakura clarifies, leaning forward with a brightness in her eyes that could only be hope.

“No. What I mean is, there have been no signs of Uchiha Sasuke in any of Orochimaru’s bases.”

“We have reports of an Uchiha being observed with Orochimaru.”

“And I don’t know who the fuck he is, but he’s definitely not Uchiha Sasuke.”

“It has to be Sasuke.” Naruto argues. “There’s no one else it could possibly be.”

The Uchiha massacre wasn’t exactly ever kept under wraps. It should be common knowledge that there was only one survivor.

(Two survivors, Yamato reminds himself, even though it’s still nearly impossible to connect the loyal ANBU that he had worked with for years with the bloody madman that slaughtered his whole clan. Sometimes it was just easier to pretend Itachi had died with the rest of them.)

Obito shakes his head though. “I’m telling you, if Uchiha Sasuke is your age, then Orochimaru’s lackey can’t be him. He’s several years older.”

Yamato’s breath catches in his throat. It can’t be Itachi. The kid might have gone insane and joined an S-class missing-nin organization, but even he would know to stay far from someone like Orochimaru. Right?

Naruto and Sakura are exchanging stubborn looks. They don’t seem to think Itachi could be the Uchiha following the snake like a lost puppy either.

Naruto shakes his head stubbornly, scowling fiercely at Obito. “It’s Sasuke.”

Obito seems to recognize the argument as the lost cause it is. His shoulders slump.

“You’re really desperate to find the Uchiha.”

“Of course.” Sakura says. “He’s our friend.”

Yamato expects the ANBU to scoff. Even most Konoha shinobi don’t understand Naruto and Sakura’s absolute dedication to their lost teammate. A Kiri ANBU would never see it as anything but naivety.

But Obito does nothing of the sort. He just stares at the two of them, and Yamato really wishes that the mask wasn’t obscuring his expression, because he truly can’t read the ANBU’s odd body language.

Finally, he looks away, back down at the map.

“If you’re looking for the Uchiha Orochimaru has under his thumb, then that means you’re looking for Orochimaru himself. Uchiha rarely leaves the snake’s shadow, except for when he’s blowing up an enemy encampment.”

Naruto’s scowl dissolves instantly, and even Sakura manages a hopeful smile when Obito looks back up at them.

“I still think you’re wasting your time, but I honestly wouldn’t mind someone taking on the Uchiha while I go for Orochimaru. He’s strong enough that I don’t think I would be able to take on the both of them at the same time.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Naruto agrees, his eyes alight with something more than fire. Sakura has the same look burning in her own gaze, and Yamato can’t help but think that this is more hope he had seen in the two of them since their meeting.

Obito points to a certain area, not too far from where they are. “This is the most logical place for him to be. I’ve been trying to herd him this direction for weeks.”

Ah. Towards the ocean, so he could cut off his retreat. Smart.

This Kiri shinobi was dangerous. And there was something off about him, something distinctly  _ not _ ANBU that made the hair on Yamato’s neck stand on end. But, for now at least, he wasn’t an enemy, even if he couldn’t necessarily be treated as an ally. Whatever web of lies he was spinning, Yamato needed to untangle it before it became a danger to his team.

______________________________________________________________________________

Finding Orochimaru is surprisingly easy. Obito has hounded the man into a corner, doing most of the legwork for them (not that Naruto would ever admit that). It’s actually getting to him that they seem to be having problems with.

Their progress is a bit hampered by the five-headed snake monster Orochimaru threw in their general direction before disappearing into his lab.

On the upside, at least they know they’re in the right place.

“Creepy  _ fucking _ ass snake lunatic doesn’t have a  _ single _ fucking idea where I’m going to shove his abomination snake experiments once I get my hands on him!” Impressively, Obito’s snarled tangent doesn’t even pause when one of the giant snakeheads nearly takes his head off. He dodges neatly to the side, jams one of his blades in between the massive scales shielding its head, and nearly gets thrown into the nearest tree when the blade sticks in the writhing creature’s flesh.

“Naruto!”

A flash of pink, and Sakura’s fist is slamming into a head coming at Naruto from the back. The purple scales ripple with the impact, and the head pulls back with an anguished screech.

Naruto grins at her sheepishly, rubbing his head. “Ah, thanks, Sakura.”

In his peripheral, a giant fireball sears the mohawked snake that Obito is fighting, and it adds its higher pitched scream to the sounds of fury coming from the many headed creature before them.

Obito lands beside Naruto, only one sword in hand, and growls again. “This is so wrong on so many levels.”

Naruto has to agree. He can see the stitch marks tying the five snakes eternally together to one gigantic body, and it makes him sick.

“Don’t suppose you’ve met before?” Sakura says, glaring at the snake creature with a rather impressive death glare.

“Yeah, maybe with a few tips on how to beat it?” Naruto chimes in, not feeling very hopeful about the matter.

Obito splutters. “Do I look like I know how to beat that thing?”

Naruto casts a glance over the ANBU, his chest armor splattered with something green and corrosive, and then finds the lost sword still embedded in Mohawk’s thrashing neck.

“Not really.”

Obito looks at Naruto, and he can feel the glare through the dark eyes of the mask. Naruto grins innocently while Sakura snorts in the background.

The standoff is broken by Yamato abandoning his fight with the bright orange snake on the right side and joining them. “Okay, we need a plan.”

Obito turns his attention back to the snake creature before them. “Fire didn’t do much.”

“And my punch did almost nothing,” Sakura adds, shaking her hand out.

Naruto has seen her punch through solid rock without flinching. Those scales must be pretty hardcore to stand up to it with the minimal damage it has.

“So that means we go for the only part of the snakes without scales,” Obito says, flipping his sword in his hand so that it is angled behind him.

Naruto eyes the narrow slits in their faces that could maybe be called eyes if you had an imagination and suspension of disbelief. How did they  _ see _ out of those things?

“Pretty narrow area,” Naruto grunts.

“Then get better aim.”

Oh, yeah, like that solves  _ any _ of their problems, Naruto wants to say, but Obito is already launching himself at the snakehead on the far right that’s a gentle lavender color that  _ totally _ doesn’t fit the mood on the howling thing at all.

Of course he chose the freakiest looking snake to target first. Of course he did.

But Sakura is cracking her knuckles, eyebrow twitching and a dangerous scowl on her face as she mutters, “Oh you’ll see just how good my aim is when I smash your face with it,” and honestly the terrifying snake is less scary than her, so Naruto takes off on Obito’s heels.

In the course of twenty seconds, Naruto nearly loses his head to a wave of acid vomit, Obito almost gets bisected by a giant fang, and they are two seconds from getting crushed under the foul smelling belly of Mohawk snake, which Naruto feels is a new record for most things gone wrong in the shortest time period, ever.

“Can we have a better plan than dying horribly?” Naruto complains, retreating to a safe distance with Obito as the snake screeches acid vomit at them again.

On the upside, Yamato, Sai, and Sakura are dealing with the head on the far side, and really not having any more luck than they are.

Obito is quiet, for the first time not spouting profanities or sarcastic comebacks, and Naruto looks the guy over for any sign of serious injury. He has blood all over his front, but considering that it’s an iridescent green color, Naruto is pretty sure that he doesn’t really need to worry about that. The rest of his clothing hides any other potential injury, but Obito doesn’t necessarily  _ look _ injured besides his newfound silence.

The mask obscures his expression, but still, there is something vaguely familiar about the stance, the narrowed eyes that don’t leave their target for a moment-

Shikamaru. This guy looks like Shikamaru systematically putting together a plan.

“Alright.” Obito shifts, pulling out of the silent daze, and Naruto feels anticipation shoot through him like lightning. “You ready to raise hell?”

“You better believe it.” Naruto grins, forming a familiar sign.

He can’t see it, but somehow he is sure Obito is smirking. “Then I’m gonna go get my sword back.”

It ends with Naruto coated from head to toe in disgusting eye juice, a Rasengan becoming a very violent fan that sends the eye fluid and eventual brain matter squirting everything in the vicinity, including every inch of Naruto. He wipes the Mohawk snake smoothie from his eyes, not daring to open his mouth to express his disgust but hoping his expression manages to convey the sheer  _ ew _ of the matter.

Obito has a similar sentiment, not wearing a second skin of snake juice but still splattered liberally— his left leg a thick sheen of iridescent green from when he slammed one of his swords and the entirety of his foot and leg as deep into the lavender snake’s brain as it would go.

He’s currently hopping on one foot and shaking his leg in an attempt to get the goo off without touching it, and Naruto has to remind himself not to laugh.

Sakura lands beside Naruto, an amused grin twisting her lips. She’s minimally spotted in her own snake juice, and Naruto gives her a giant scowl at the smug look on her face.

“Snake barbecue, anyone?” She jokes, eyeing the middle snake head that is more char than scales at that point. The sustained blast to the face that Obito had managed was honestly terrifying. Naruto does not envy that poor creature.

Sakura, maybe feeling bad for Naruto’s silent predicament or (more likely) not wanting to deal with the smell, pulls one of the incognito cloaks out of her backpack and throws it at him to use as an improvised towel.

Obito stops hopping, glaring at both Naruto and the cloak as if they personally betrayed him before directing his glare down at the coagulating goo on his uniform. He looks like he would like to burn the entire uniform, and Naruto can’t help but feel a bit bad because he’s well aware that this is Obito’s only remaining set of clothes.

Apparently snake hunting is hazardous to clothing. Who knew?


	2. Enter, stage left. The Artists

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Possibly, Naruto might have obeyed. He might have left ‘Obito’ to take on Orochimaru, trusted him to at least survive long enough for Naruto to return and finish kicking the snake’s ass.
> 
> Maybe it was just Sasuke’s wishful thinking. But because Sasuke has a case of bad luck that is only surpassed by Obito, he never gets the chance to have his optimism inevitably shattered by his idiot teammate.
> 
> Instead, the ground behind Orochimaru explodes in a ball of fire.

The moment of celebration for the snake’s defeat doesn’t last as a familiar slimy voice sounds from the direction of the snake monstrosity.

“You’ve gone and killed Alyssa.” Orochimaru rubs his hand up the only clean spot on Lavender’s nose, almost as if he is comforting a hurt animal. “Now what did she ever do to you?”

“What did she do to  _ you _ ?” Naruto splutters, waving an incredulous and slightly disgusted hand at the monstrosity. “This is sick!”

Orochimaru cackles.  _ Cackles _ . Like an insane witch. “Well, look at this little team-up. The little bloodhound. And a bunch of Konoha brats.”

Like Sasuke, Naruto doesn’t seem all that up for the villain monologue. He steps in front of their group, forming the familiar sign for shadow clone jutsu and Sasuke wants to sigh in exasperation. Did he learn  _ no _ other jutsus in the three years Sasuke’s been gone?

“Where’s Sasuke, you bastard?” Naruto growls.

...And Sasuke’s appreciation for Tobi’s mask obsession just skyrocketed from grudgingly accepting to throwing the man a damn  _ thank you _ party complete with cake and dango.

Sasuke’s habit of wearing the mask near constantly (even while sleeping, which is harder than it sounds), formed from Tobi’s insistence that they both wear masks on a fairly regular basis, just saved him from an uncomfortable and probably painful torment that would have arisen if Orochimaru had caught even a glimpse of Sasuke’s true identity in the months pursuing him. He can only imagine the joy the Sannin would have rubbing the truth of the matter in both Naruto and Sakura’s faces.

It would have been even more devastating than if his old team had discovered his identity the moment they stumbled upon him killing Orochimaru’s snakes in the forest.

As it is…

“Oh, you mean my subordinate,” Orochimaru says, milking the awry intelligence Konoha is operating off of with a glee that makes Sasuke want to stab the man in his face with a good old fashioned Chidori. “I believe he’s inside. It doesn’t appear he was much interested by your arrival, Konoha.”

Of course he isn’t. According to what Tobi was able to find, Orochimaru’s new Uchiha has no connection to Konoha besides the individual he’s impersonating.

(Sasuke hopes the act was worth if for the imposter, because after all the shit Tobi’s been giving Sasuke about Orochimaru’s pet dragging Sasuke’s — admittedly already tarnished— name through the mud, Sasuke has three years of petty spite at his disposal, and he’s not afraid to use it.

If there was anything Tobi taught Sasuke, it was how to operate out of sheer spite.)

Unfortunately, the imposter is, in fact, an Uchiha (a bad one, but who’s keeping track at this point? At this point, Sasuke is convinced that all Uchiha are certifiably insane). After three hours of generating increasingly improbable theories, Tobi and Sasuke came up with three possible explanations for the imposter’s actual identity:

  1. He’s a byproduct of the Third Shinobi War; a nameless Uchiha, probably unable to even awaken a Sharingan of his own, having a one night stand with some foreign girl too stupid to know that all Uchiha were cursed with the worst luck in the history of mankind.
  2. Orochimaru manufactured him in a lab from an unknown source of Uchiha DNA. To be fair, this isn’t as implausible as it sounds. There was a lot of… DNA lying around on the night of the massacre.
  3. He’s a time traveler from a future where one of the three surviving Uchiha _somehow_ managed to make and keep alive a child for long enough for it to grow into adulthood and have kids of their own that _somehow_ also survived. (This option is, admittedly, a bit more fueled by exhaustion and sake than common sense.)



But, obviously Sasuke can’t share this bit of knowledge with Naruto and company right now. Glancing at Naruto’s pissed expression and the shear determination burning in his eyes, Sasuke admits he probably wouldn’t be able to get through to his teammate even if he had the slightest inclination to try. Naruto needs to confirm the Uchiha’s false identity with his own eyes.

Which means that Sasuke needs to give Naruto a chance to see him, up close and personal.

Sasuke steps in front of Naruto, his remaining sword in one hand and forming a seal with the other, and says, “Orochimaru’s mine. You go get the Uchiha.”

The snake slides into a defensive stance, a terrifying grin splitting his mouth. “Are you going to make this interesting, boy?”

Naruto decides to make things difficult, which, in hindsight, Sasuke probably should have expected.

“We aren’t just going to ditch you, Obito,” the yellow haired teen says, stepping up beside Sasuke. Vaguely, Sasuke is aware of Sakura doing the same on Naruto’s other side, and Yamato stepping behind them to offer support.

It leaves a sour taste in his mouth, but if Sasuke’s being honest with himself, misplaced altruism towards his own team isn’t the only reason he needs Naruto to leave. He knows he can’t afford to hold back against the Sannin — and the Sharingan is rather distinctive, even with a mask on.

“This is  _ my _ mission,” Sasuke snaps impatiently. It isn’t even a lie. He can’t afford to fail in this. Three months of dogged pursuit can attest to that. “Go find yours.” He feels only a twinge of guilt that he’s intentionally leading them on a false trail. At the end of the day, this is more important than any friendship they feel for their lost teammate.

Possibly, Naruto might have obeyed. He might have left ‘Obito’ to take on Orochimaru, trusted him to at least survive long enough for Naruto to return and finish kicking the snake’s ass.

Maybe it was just Sasuke’s wishful thinking. But because Sasuke has a case of bad luck that is only surpassed by Obito, he never gets the chance to have his optimism inevitably shattered by his idiot teammate.

Instead, the ground behind Orochimaru explodes in a ball of fire.

Dust obscures Sasuke’s vision completely and he instinctively closes his eyes, a wash a nostalgia running through him as he remembers the time when Tobi decided Sasuke was just a bit too reliant on his Sharingan (the hypocrite). He spent a whole month blinding Sasuke at every possible moment during their…  _ spars _ , to phrase it politely.

He couldn’t have just said something like a normal human being. He  _ had _ to be an ass about it. Enigmatic jerk.

On the upside, however, parsing through the natural chakra flow of the earth to locate everyone is easy now; just a brief moment of concentration to bring everything beyond vague impressions and into a clarity he can work with. Sensing chakra signatures is nothing like seeing. It’s more… a gut feeling that can be honed to a sharp edge.

Sasuke feels a newly familiar chakra signature skid into place beside the rest of team Konoha, and wonders when exactly Danzo’s puppet managed to slip away without any of them noticing.

It was during the fight with the snake; Sasuke remembers now a distinct lack of inky creatures distracting the last snake head.

Ignoring one of Danzo’s minions is a stupid,  _ stupid _ mistake. For a brief moment, Sasuke considers cutting Sai down right here, eliminating the threat before he catches Sasuke unawares once again. Orochimaru isn’t taking advantage of the confusion to attack them, instead hanging back to greet the two other chakra signatures that also arise from the center of the fireball: his two omnipresent minions: Kabuto and the Uchiha. The dust is clearing, but still, no one would be able to react before Sasuke takes him out.

Sasuke’s hand tightens on his sword, and-

-two more chakra signatures register and Sasuke realizes that they have much worse problems to deal with at the moment.

“Get down!” he yells, seals flashing between both hands, his sword hanging forgotten between them. The Konoha shinobi all duck, instantly searching for the danger. Almost as one, their heads fly up as a shadow blocks the sun, a white bird far too large to be natural sweeping overhead. At Sasuke’s prodding, the earth rises above their heads in a large dome, just in time to be bombarded with small, doughy explosions that could only belong to one person.

“What is that!” Naruto screeches, impressively making himself heard over the echoing booms of the world around them being decimated by tiny clay birds.

Sasuke thinks ‘the insane bomb happy maniac’ is probably not the most helpful answer, so he keeps quiet and focuses on the dirt cracking off the ceiling in large clumps.

Distantly, he hears an unfortunately familiar voice scream “ART!” and ducks out of the one-sided dom long enough to hurl several lightning infused kunai in the voice’s general direction, stepping back into cover just in time to avoid the small explosives tossed his way.

There’s a muffled curse that sounds like it’s coming from a disgruntled Sasori, and Sasuke figures he must have been on target enough for Deidara to execute ‘evasive maneuvers’. A sense of vindictive pleasure brings a manic grin to his face, and he only just resists calling out a taunt, remembering at the last moment that he has an audience that would probably find it odd for him to be on a first-name basis with members of the Akatsuki.

For a moment, the bombing ceases, and the only sound is Yamato’s Mokuton reinforcing the walls of the— admittedly weak— dome.

“Who is that?” Naruto repeats, a muffled curse interrupting him as the dome shakes and a large clod of dirt falls on his head. Sasuke rolls his eyes and throws another set of kunai beyond the wall to distract Deidara from bringing the dome down on top of them.

Yamato, crouched with one hand to the group and his eyes narrowed in concentration as he directs his jutsu, frowns at the ceiling as if he could see right through it. “More of Orochimaru’s minions?”

Before Sasuke can reply with a very distinct negative, Sai shakes his head. “Uchiha Sasuke and Yakushi Kabuto are the only ones accompanying Orochimaru. Both of them I encountered inside the base.”

Sasuke wonders if Sai just doesn’t realize the repercussions to admitting he basically abandoned his team to go elsewhere, or if he just decided the Akatsuki took higher priority.

Mistake number one was expecting anything other than Naruto and friends taking  _ teamwork _ and  _ friendship _ as the highest priority.

Naruto whirls on Sai, predictably focusing on a different part of Sai’s statement than what he intended. “That explosion was  _ you _ ?”

Sai, Sasuke notes, looks greatly offended. “That was the Uchiha.”

Sakura also rounds on him, a ferocious scowl twisting her features as she hisses, “What were you doing in there?”

Sai shrugs, perhaps not registering or stupidly ignoring the implication of violence in both of Team Seven’s eyes. “My mission.”

When she slams him against the wall, a large crack slithers up the entirety of the dome, bisecting it quite neatly around the Sai-shaped dent in the wall. Branches immediately snake up the walls, pulling together the crumbling surface. The dome is more branches than dirt now.

“What mission was that?” Sakura hisses, the anger burning in her eyes indicative that she has already correctly guessed Sai’s real reason for being here.

Yamato and Naruto also have similar expressions twisting their normally amiable faces, and Sai finally registers the anger in the entire Konoha team. For the first time, he hesitates.

Mistake number two was thinking they wouldn’t be overprotective over the guy they think is Sasuke. To be fair, though, Sasuke made that same mistake, and still doesn’t quite understand it.

A large section of the dome crumbles, Sasuke’s weak doton finally giving way despite Yamato’s best efforts (Sakura’s contribution definitely didn’t help), and Sasuke decides that, as entertaining as it is to watch one of Danzo’s puppets get roasted, there is also a thing called priorities and Orochimaru’s death just skyrocketed to  _ absolutely detrimental right now, this instant _ .

“He was sent here to kill the Uchiha. Good? Good.” Sasuke doesn’t wait for a reply before he leaps out of cover, letting loose a whirl of kunai with one hand and slicing four of Deidara’s bombs open with his lightning infused sword.

Deidara lets out a startled laugh as Sasori knocks the kunai away easily with his puppet’s tail and Sasuke slides into open space that gives him visibility on the two Akatsuki and Orochimaru’s little band.

“You’re still alive Cockroach!” He sounds a bit too happy about that, but that’s par for the course with this lunatic, so Sasuke doesn’t read too much into it. Most likely he just wants a chance to get back at Sasuke for what happened in their last fight with the paint. “We were worried when Tobi showed up all by his lonesome for the last few months!”

Sasori grumbles and Sasuke gets the impression the puppeteer doesn’t share the sentiment.

Deidara throws a smirk down at Sasuke. “We thought you were dead in a ditch somewhere.”

“And miss the opportunity to do the world a favor by disintegrating your art?” Sasuke replies cheekily. “Never.”

“I’ll disintegrate  _ you _ , hn!” Deidara screeched, leaning so far forward that he nearly falls off of his bird abomination.

Sasuke’s retort is cut short by a sharp inhale, and the nearly silent whisper of “Akatsuki”. He glances to his right and sees Naruto frozen in his advance to join Sasuke’s side. The others, dispersing in a formation that suggests a planned attack from behind, also hesitate as they lay eyes on their attackers for the first time.

Belatedly, Sasuke considers that he probably should have warned the Konoha team about Deidara’s affiliation before they saw them.

There’s a long moment when no one moves, the three groups analyzing each other warily as they brace for attack. Orochimaru is the only one that seems delighted by the situation, his cold eyes watching every move with something akin to amusement that makes Sasuke want to run him through with a sword.

Finally, Sasori turns away from Sasuke’s group and raises his gravelly voice above the wind. “Orochimaru. We have something to discuss.”

Orochimaru’s eyes flick, perplexingly, to Sasuke, watching his reaction closely. Sasuke stiffens under the gaze and tries not to react beyond the tightening of his hand around his sword.

After a brief pause, Orochimaru replies cordially, “Shall we head inside while the children play?”

Sasori grunts in what must be affirmation, because Deidara’s bird takes a sudden swoop towards Orochimaru’s group. He jumps off the bird stiffly and raises an expectant eyebrow at Orochimaru.

This is precisely the  _ worst  _ case scenario for Sasuke’s entire mission, and there is no way in hell he’s letting them ‘discuss’ an alliance. He lunges forward, his only focus on chopping Orochimaru’s head off and frying it to ash-

A kunai comes up to meet his sword, and suddenly he’s glaring into Kabuto’s eyes.

Orochimaru smirks at Sasuke before giving a graceful bow to Sasori and leading the way into the smoking remains of the base. “Kabuto. I trust you will handle things here.” Orochimaru says, not even sparing a glance back at his smirking subordinate.

“Of course, Lord Orochimaru.”

Sasori pauses to turn and face Deidara. “Stay out here and keep the muck out.”

“I’m not a babysitter, un,” Deidara says petulantly.

Sasori raises his eyebrow again and glances tellingly at Sasuke. “I would have thought you would like a rematch.”

It is the right thing to say, apparently, because a wide grin breaks out on Deidara’s face and he nods in agreement.

He whips his arm out and a white blob shoots in Sasuke’s direction at high speed. Sasuke uses his longer sword as leverage to shove Kabuto away before leaping backwards from the bird and narrowly avoiding the resulting explosion.

 

The two sides exchange challenging looks, Naruto and Sakura squaring off against the imposter Uchiha while Yamato steps up beside Sasuke. In his periphery, Sasuke is aware of Sai sliding up beside Naruto and Sakura.

Deidara throws a manic grin at Sasuke and shoves his hands in his clay bags, looking far too excited.

Distantly, Sasuke is aware that Sasori and Orochimaru have disappeared.

“Aw,  _ shit _ .”

_______________________________________________________

True to form, Obito is the one to break the standoff, charging the blond Akatsuki guy with the freaky hands with incredible speed.

As if that was the cue, Sai sends several ink creatures at Sasuke; snakes slithering across the ground and two wolves howling for his blood. Despite the fact that he knows Sasuke wouldn’t get taken out by only a few ink creatures, unspeakable rage soars through Naruto’s veins, because those are attacks to kill, and Sai is apparently a traitor to Konoha, and the point of a team is trust and what is a team if you can’t even trust your teammates?

With a growl that is more animal than human, Naruto shoves his shoulder into Sai, throwing off his next attack.

Sai has the audacity to turn a betrayed look on  _ Naturo _ , as if  _ he _ was the one here with nefarious purposes.

“We’re bringing Sasuke home,” Naruto hisses, holding Sai’s shoulder with a grip that is just a bit too tight. “Not killing him.”

“He doesn’t seem to agree with that assessment.” Sai casts a look over Naruto’s shoulder, where Sasuke avoids a punch from Sakura and immediately follows up with a ball of fire with blistering heat that Naruto can feel from even this far away. The sheer intensity of it is astounding and honestly terrifying. He shows no inclination towards pulling his punches, seems to lean towards absolute disintegration as the way to deal with his old team, and Naruto is terrified that Sai is right.

Still, giving up has never been his ninja way and never will be, so Naruto shoves Sai towards Kabuto, who is currently watching all three of the conflicts with far too much amusement, with the order “If you need to kill someone, go after him.”

Sai gives Naruto an annoyed look, but still turns to the silver-haired missing-nin with a cold glint in his eyes. Kabuto looks far too excited for the conflict, but Naruto doesn’t stay to watch, instead turning his attention back to Sakura and Sasuke.

They appear to be in a standoff, of sorts, with Sakura’s doton warding off Sasuke’s katon but not quite negating it, her skin slowly turning red as it is singed at the edges, and Sasuke’s taijutsu not strong enough to take her punches and thus leading to him unable to land a hit on her.

Unfortunately, it is probably a good thing that Sasuke’s speed has increased from his genin days. Despite the comparative quickness he had back then, Sakura’s punches would definitely be able to hit nowadays, and with her current mood, Naruto isn’t sure there would be anything left to take back to Konoha.

“Sasuke!” Naruto screams, making his voice heard over the crackling flames and splitting rock. Luckily, the two other members of team seven stop in their tracks. Sakura warily steps back until she is closer to Naruto’s side, and Sasuke slides a few feet to the left to keep them both at a cautious distance. “Let’s talk, teme.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

There is no recognition in his gaze, no inflection in his tone, and Naruto feels anger brewing in his gut. After how they parted last time, after all of the things team seven went through together, the sheer indifference in infuriating.

It takes a breath, a glance at the curse mark on Sasuke’s neck, Kakashi’s seal around it long since removed, for the anger in Naruto’s gut to cool. Orochimaru has had over three years to dig his claws into Sasuke. It’s not surprising that one of the first things he did was remove team seven from the equation.

That just meant that talking wouldn’t work. But that’s alright. Talking has never been the Uchiha way. Sometimes, to only way to get through Sasuke’s thick skull is by beating it into him. If that’s what he needs, that’s what Naruto would do. Anything to get his friend back home where he belongs.

In the distance, Naruto hears a particularly loud explosion, and, impressively, an even louder curse from Obito.

It does the job of drawing him out of his head, even if it doesn’t exactly bode well for Obito’s fight against the Akatsuki member.

(The Akatsuki is a whole other bombshell Naruto just can’t deal with right now. His priority is Sasuke. It has to be. Anyway, Obito and Yamato seem to have the fight well in hand.)

Sakura leans slightly towards Naruto, her voice leveled so only he can hear her, and she mutters, “His right leg is weak. It almost looks like a childhood injury, but Sasuke didn’t have any sort of indication of something like that while he was with us.”

Naruto’s eyes widen and he leans even closer, also scaling his voice low. “Orochimaru?”

Sakura’s brow furrows, but she nods hesitantly. “I don’t know where else it would be from. But I don’t know why he would damage his future body like that.”

“Does insanity need a reason?”

Sakura frowns heavily. “Something isn’t right here.” She glances surreptitiously back at the fight going on in the background, where Obito is currently riding a wooden dragon and wielding his lightning infused sword against a clay blob that could possibly be a bird with a little imagination and artistic license. Naruto spares a moment to be jealous, because despite the loud cursing he heard earlier, Obito seems to be having a grand old time against the blond Akatsuki. “Obito was convinced that the Uchiha with Orochimaru wasn’t Sasuke.”

Naruto laughs half-heartedly. “Sakura, come on. If he’s not Sasuke, who the hell could he be? It’s not like there’s a plethora of Uchiha with that strength of Katon ninjutsu running around.”

“I know.” Her eyes squint at Sasuke, not looking convinced despite her agreement. “Let’s just be careful. Something isn’t right here.”

Naruto nods. “Yeah, sure, Sakura.” She isn’t wrong. Something feels wrong about this fight. It isn’t just the disinterest, or the old injury that never existed before. There’s just… no resonance, for lack of better words. Even when they fought, Naruto always felt connected to Sasuke. But now…

Maybe it’s because of how long it’s been. Maybe it’s because of the distance Sasuke intentionally put between them.

Well then. Naruto already knew that the only way to get through to an Uchiha was by beating their head against a rock until they listened.

A good fight with help clear things up. No matter what. Naruto will get up close and personal with him and confirm without a shadow of a doubt who it is, because he could never mistake the bastard for anyone else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh wow, I already got another chapter out. This is a new record for me. I just want to thank all the support I've already gotten. Wow, only one chapter in and the comments I have gotten are astounding! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I'm so excited to get to the really deep stuff, you guys don't even know.
> 
> Please leave comments! I love them so much and they are so inspirational. I started jumping up and down after reading a few of them. More comments and likes means more motivation and faster posting, so please let me know what you enjoyed (I personally loved making Obito and Sasuke's list on the mystery Uchiha's true identity).
> 
> Also, just as a note. I'll explain this later in the story itself as well, but the reason Naruto and Sakura can't tell right off the bat that 'Sasuke' isn't Sasuke is because there's a lot of dust floating around and they haven't really gotten up close and personal with him yet. And, in their defense, they are a bit distracted, and Uchiha can look very similar.


	3. This Chapter's Guest Star Is Insanity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Bastard,” Naruto hisses. “What did you do to Sasuke?”
> 
> The veins are standing out in the faker’s neck as he strains to get as close to Naruto’s face as possible, unheeding of the sharp teeth bared at him. Lowly, nearly whispering in Naruto’s ear, he says, “You know, I’m not sure what Orochimaru-sama did with the brat, but I’m sure he appreciates what his name has become. Or he would, if he wasn’t dead in a ditch somewhere.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I blame Deidara for the entire delay. This chapter was way too hard to write.  
> By the way, everyone is completely bonkers. But don't worry, because all the best people are.
> 
> Just to keep the timeline straight, the battle at the Valley of the end was about two and a half years ago from the current time. There's been mention that Sasuke split off from Tobi about two to three months ago.
> 
> Also, team Konoha is still calling Sasuke "Obito" and confusing myself, everyone and everyone's dog because Sasuke (and I) are complete idiots.  
> Have fun!

**A little less than two years ago:**

“Saaasssuukkkeee-chan!” The high-pitched squeal is not enough warning for Sasuke to do anything more than duck, which turns out to be largely ineffectual in warding off the orange-masked man from Sasuke’s general vicinity. In fact, Tobi seems to take it as permission to drape himself across Sasuke’s back, the weight of a full grown man making the thirteen-year-old grunt and stagger before he can catch his balance.

Sasuke reaches for his kunai pouch, already picturing the blade lodging itself into the man’s skull as rage once again surges into his chest, because this man has  _ no right _ -

Tobi doesn’t bother to dodge. He doesn’t even dislodge from Sasuke’s back. His arms flail about and a scroll is shoved in front of Sasuke’s face far too close to be legible, the kunai covertly slipping into Tobi’s pouch before Sasuke even realizes it was knocked from his hand.

Sasuke hisses, ignoring the scroll and twisting his neck uncomfortably to glare at the man. “You son of a bitch,” he growls, shrugging the man off of his shoulders with something that he refuses to acknowledge as desperation, his skin crawling from the mere contact with him. Thankfully, Tobi allows Sasuke to duck out of the hold and put several feet of distance between them.

Shame burns Sasuke’s cheeks at the weakness of his retreat, and he hides the color in his cheeks by burying his face deeper into his scarf and glaring at a stall vendor too curious for his own good.

Tobi either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care (Sasuke’s nonexistent money is on the latter), and he continues to wave the scroll in his hyperactive hands. Once again, Sasuke feels like he’s spinning on a top trying to connect the dexterity with which he was disarmed and the idiot that did the disarming. His emotions spiral between annoyance, anger, and fear, and he doesn’t know which of them to act on.

He already knows where the anger leads, and he refuses to acknowledge the fear, so that leaves only the annoyance that twists his face into a scowl as Tobi says, his voice high-pitched and far too happy for the cold and gray evening, “You’re famous, Sasuke-chan!”

Sasuke blinks, even the annoyance dissipating in the face of an utter expression of “What?”

Tobi, in an act of benevolence, tosses the scroll to Sasuke instead of approaching, and watches from a safe distance (no distance is safe from a man like him) as Sasuke warily directs his attention to the scroll’s contents.

His eyebrows shoot up immediately, the Konoha symbol emblazoned in his mind just as clearly as it is on the paper, and he shoots a look at Tobi, who has already occupied himself with a staring contest with a vendor’s nearby statues.

“Where did you get this?” He’s surprised at the terseness in his own voice, the anger at implied violence towards a Konoha comrade.

If he notices the tone, Tobi once again ignores it, not even bothering to turn from his inspection of a particularly ugly looking frog as he hums before answering with a careless “Where do you think I got it, Sasuke-chan?”

Sasuke doesn’t bother to answer, turning back to the Konoha missive that appears to be a report from a shinobi out in the field. The date is recent, only one day ago, and Sasuke wonders how Tobi knew this was information worth getting. He has an incredibly astute awareness of everything happening around him, both in his general vicinity during a fight and in the large scale picture of his grand schemes, and it’s really a toss-up if Tobi can predict the future or if he’s just extremely paranoid.

It’s a standard report, just a team of chuunin doing border patrol and making the necessary rounds. At first, Sasuke sees nothing important— it sounds as droll as could possibly be, with the supposed goal of the writer to be to bore their audience to death on the subject of trees, trees, and oh, look, more trees (Sasuke is so tired of trees), and Sasuke starts to wonder if Tobi is just trying to fuck with him. He  _ really _ wouldn’t put it past him.

But then—

“Uchiha Sasuke was sighted doing what now!?” Sasuke does  _ not _ screech. He doesn’t. But if his voice is just a bit higher pitched than usual, well, it is understandable.

Tobi’s looking over his shoulder the next moment, humming annoyingly as he quotes the report “‘raiding a feudal lord’s castle, bearing the flag of Otogakure, demanding a protection payment in the name of Orochimaru’.” Tobi pauses briefly, scanning further down the paper as if he hadn’t seen it yet. “ _ Oh _ , it looks like you burnt down the guy’s castle. I like it, Sasuke-chan. Nothing could scream Uchiha more than fireballs.”

Sasuke sputters. “I didn’t  _ do _ this! I’ve been stuck in the forest with  _ you _ for four months.”

Tobi taps the report, sounding frustratingly sincere in his skepticism. “But Sasuke-chan, this says you’re Orochimaru-sama’s errand boy now.”

“They’re idiots then. Someone starts throwing fire around and they just assume it’s me?”

“Well, fire is quite the Uchiha trait. As far as Konoha is aware, Orochimaru is in possession of an Uchiha, and there’s not a very large pool of them anymore. They’re connecting dots at this point.”

Sasuke grumbles. “Well, they’re doing it wrong.”

“Oooh, Sasuke-chan’s upset,” Tobi calls out in a singsong voice.

“ _ Stop calling me that! _ ” Sasuke snaps, a kunai flying towards Tobi before he even registers it leaving his hand.

Tobi screeches, throwing himself dramatically to the side to avoid the kunai and landing on his ass. The kunai lodges into a nearby stall, and Tobi spends several long seconds staring at it before turning his head slowly towards Sasuke. Sasuke takes a step back, unable to read the expression hidden in the man’s eye, and lets his hand drift down to hover over his kunai pouch.

“That was a very half-assed attempt,” Tobi says finally, sounding slightly surprised. “Usually there’s at least a fireball or Chidori in there somewhere.”

Sasuke blinks and, bit by bit, allows himself to relax. “I guess it’s just habit at this point.”

Tobi laughs, far too breathy to be classified under his regular giggle. “I’m touched.” He stands, dusting himself off with far more attention than is truly necessary. “Anyway, the point is, as far as the world is concerned, Uchiha Sasuke is currently lackey number one for Orochimaru.”

Frowning, Sasuke stares down at the scroll still held tightly in his hand. “That’s bad, isn’t it?”

Tobi doesn’t reply, so Sasuke looks up to try and read him.

“You said the only way this works is with anonymity. That we can’t afford to have villages sticking their noses where they don’t belong.” Sasuke gestures at the scroll, his gut heavy with something he doesn’t want to acknowledge as dread. “This is the exact opposite of anonymity.”

Tobi is watching him, his eye fixed on Sasuke’s every movement as if he is staring into Sasuke’s soul. He doesn’t reply immediately, doesn’t move beyond the brief flickers of his Sharingan analyzing Sasuke’s every twitch.

Whatever he sees, it must be good enough.

“No, Sasuke,” Tobi says, his voice a serious baritone rather than the high-pitched insanity he pitches whenever they’re in public. “This is anonymity at its finest.” He turns, heads towards the edge of town, pointed east. Over his shoulder, he tosses out, “After all, if they’re expecting you to be burning down villages, they won’t be looking for you to be hunting missing-nin.”

Sasuke, stunned for a brief moment, has to trot to catch up, falling into step with the man before belatedly shoving his hands into his pockets in an attempt to appear less eager.

Making sure to pitch his voice as disinterested as possible, Sasuke asks, “Where are we going then?”

Though he can’t see it, Sasuke is convinced that Tobi is wearing a shark’s grin under his mask. “Ever wanted to be ANBU, Sasuke-chan?”

Confused, Sasuke doesn’t reply.

The lack of a reply doesn’t throw Tobi off for a single moment. He throws his hands in the air, waving ecstatically. “We should get Orochimaru-sama flowers for being such a great help, ne, Sasuke-chan?”

A hand settles on Sasuke’s head, and he barely manages to restrain a flinch. “Don’t worry, kid.” Something dark seems to settle over him, and with the dry air of dark humor that Sasuke is learning is an integral part to him, Tobi adds casually, “After all, the only cover better than this is being dead.”

_______________________________________________

**Now**

It takes Sakura flinging Naruto into a headlong dive, completely horizontal, both hands extended in front of him, feet flapping behind him, straight at Sasuke for Naruto to land a blow on his wayward teammate. The look of utter shock on the Uchiha’s face makes it totally worth it when Naruto’s aim takes a turn for the worse, and instead of completely taking out Sasuke’s midsection he finds himself flying too far to the right and far higher than he intended.

He ends up clotheslining Sasuke’s neck and sending them both into a uncontrolled roll fraught with brutal elbows and knees aimed at soft tissues.

The struggle ends with Naruto on top of his waist, his knee pinning down one of the pale wrists and his hand holding the other. His free hand is pressed against his teammate’s collarbone, pressing him steadily into the dirt.

Naruto is already crowing at top volume in his mind over his victory before the truth hits him in the face like a wet fish. The elation plummets into freefall to grab his chest and squeeze, but Naruto barely notices the acidic burn of the Kyuubi's anger.

The only thing he can focus on is Sasuke’s brown—  _ brown _ — eyes.

He’s inches from the bullseye only to realize that he was aiming at the wrong target.

“Who the  _ hell _ -” Naruto growls, baring his teeth far too close to  _ Not _ -Sasuke’s face. His grip on the pale wrist tightens until he hears bones grind.

Not-Sasuke winces, but refuses to break eye contact from the growing hurricane of fury. “I’m Sasuke.”

If he wasn’t so  _ angry _ and  _ hurt _ , Naruto might actually feel a bit impressed at the guy’s balls. Instead, Naruto fists his hand into the white shirt and uses it bring the imposter’s face closer to his scowl.

“You are  _ not _ the Sasuke I know.”

He laughs.  _ Laughs _ . As if this is a game. As if Naruto’s teammate, his  _ friend _ , isn’t just gone in the wind without a single clue of where he could be. “I’m the only Sasuke that matters.” Naruto growls, his knuckles white from his grip he has on the imposter’s shirt. In response, Not-Sasuke sends him a pointed look, a smirk dancing across his face. “ _ Your _ Sasuke has been gone for two years. My actions trump his absence, wouldn’t you say?”

“Bastard,” Naruto hisses. “What did you do to Sasuke?”

The veins are standing out in the faker’s neck as he strains to get as close to Naruto’s face as possible, unheeding of the sharp teeth bared at him. Lowly, nearly whispering in Naruto’s ear, he says, “You know, I’m not sure what Orochimaru-sama did with the brat, but I’m sure he appreciates what his name has become. Or he would, if he wasn’t dead in a ditch somew-”

Naruto slams his head into the ground with a giant crack. The faker’s eyes wander dazedly, his words lost in the wind but still ringing insistently in Naruto’s ears. There’s blood on the ground under his head and he can’t seem to focus his eyes, but it’s not enough.

Screaming, Naruto’s fist cracks across his mouth, his nails carving large divots into the otherwise impeccable skin. Blood spatters on the rocks, and Naruto hits him again.

And again.

And again.

_________________________________________________

Fighting with Yamato is like fighting with Obito, but an Obito from a different dimension. They both use wood style, but while Obito’s is sharp, jutting spikes relentlessly on the attack; brutal and ugly and efficient, Yamato’s is hardened blocks pounding through attacks with a defensive power that is really impressive.

Obito doesn’t really go for the whole defense thing, and it is an odd experience having a branch grow in between Sasuke and a particularly nasty explosive that slipped past his defenses, shielding him in a surprisingly protective gesture.

Obito also doesn’t bother with making his branches form anything specifically, so riding a wooden dragon is definitely something that Sasuke has, unfortunately, never had the pleasure of trying before.

There are moments when Obito’s face gets a bit lighter, his deep frown pulling up just enough that it could maybe be called a smile, his scars seeming to lighten as the dark burden on his shoulders pulls away. It’s not the manic insanity of Tobi. It’s just a less broken Obito. Sasuke thinks it might be a shadow of the Obito that could have been before Madara and Zetsu and all the other bullshit. He thinks that that Obito would find a lot of excitement out of being able to make wooden dragons.

Fighting with Yamato, though, is a jarring experience, because there are moments Sasuke finds himself slipping into a familiar role, anticipating the branches and providing an attack immediately on the tail of the devastating wood style. Deidara is perfectly capable of blowing wood to smithereens, but it’s rather hard to dodge a lightning attack with splinters in your eyes.

One moment, they are perfectly in sync. The next, Sasuke is leaping into the line of fire because Yamato was trying to attack around his partner and didn’t anticipate Sasuke’s speed or the ingrained response Sasuke has of ‘ _ get the hell out of Obito’s way and try not to get stabbed _ ’.

The branch (and thank God it’s a block and not the sharp twigs Obito uses because otherwise he would be completely impaled) slams into Sasuke’s chest, his sword barely getting up and between them enough to prevent the cracking of several ribs. Instead, he’s thrown into a nearby tree and gets a nice set of bruises on his back to go with the ones on his chest instead.

Sasuke groans. Another downside is that Sasuke is a bit more limited without using his Sharingan. The mask hides it to some extent, but Sharingans have the unfortunate side effect of glowing menacingly, and with how observant Yamato is, he just can’t risk it.

In the distance, Sasuke hears Deidara laughing.

Yay friendly fire.

Yamato lands next to Sasuke, his eyes tightened in worry as Sasuke hauls himself to his feet. “Shit, I’m sorry-”

“NARUTO!”

Acidic chakra shoots through the air like a soundless cannon, resonating in their very bones the same way that Sakura’s scream echoes in their ears. As one, all three of their heads, Deidara included, whip in the same direction, focusing on the orange glow emanating from a crouched figure. Sasuke watches the blood drain from Yamato’s face. The captain lunges towards Naruto before stuttering in his step and hesitating, an almost painful look of indecision on his face.

“What the hell are you waiting for?!” Sasuke snaps. “Go!”

He takes off without another word, shooting towards the Jinchuuriki and already forming seals with his hands.

Deidara jerks as if to go after the wood style user, and Sasuke throws a kunai at his face.

He dodges it easily, but it still makes Sasuke feel better.

The bomb maniac turns back to Sasuke, a gleam in his visible eye and a greedy smirk splitting his face. He’s practically salivating at the Kyuubi chakra in the air.

“Another Jinchuuriki, Cockroach?” Deidara says. “I’m offended you didn’t introduce us.”

Sasuke doesn’t answer beyond finally allowing his Sharingan to activate, three tomoe spinning in his red eyes.

Deidara’s eyes narrow, his feet shifting into a more defensive stance. “Tell me, Uchiha. What did you plan on doing with this one?” His eyes flick back over to Naruto, where Yamato and Sakura are trying to keep a lid on the Kyuubi chakra. “He’s not quite the Kazekage brat, is he?” Deidara once again focuses on Sasuke, something malicious burning in his eyes. “But is he really like the girl with with Nanabi?”

Sasuke spins his sword in his hand, allowing it to meld in his grip as an extension of his arm. “That’s not an issue if I kill you now.”

Deidara shoves his hands into the pouches at his hips. “Just try it.”

Instead of replying, Sasuke darts forward, one hand reaching into his kunai pouch, while the other lights up his sword with crackling electricity, slicing through the small creatures Deidara throws at him. The bomb expert is a long-distance fighter. He needs time to do his jutsu and is rather inept at hand to hand. The solution to fighting him is to get close enough that setting any of his bombs off would also mean blowing himself up.

Sasuke ducks under one of the bigger ones, an fat bird that is surprisingly fast despite its size, and leaves it in his dust before it can ruin his momentum.

Of course, the issue with that strategy is that Deidara is completely insane and totally willing to blow himself up.

The bomb expert’s face lights up as another large bird comes between the two of them, the one Sasuke dodged coming up on his back and hemming him in.

The solution to that issue is to not be there when he activates the explosion.

Sasuke dives under the bird, twisting to skate across the ground on his back. He slides past Deidara, who just manages to stop the two birds from exploding. Instead, they shoot after Sasuke, gaining on him almost instantly.

“ART!” Deidara screams, and Sasuke jams the tip of his sword into the ground and swings himself bodily around it to once again pivot around Deidara. The birds go off, fracturing a small crater into the ground where Sasuke just was and sending his sword flying off into the distance, but Sasuke already has Chidori brimming on his fingertips, jabbing ruthlessly at Deidara’s midsection.

He manages to dodge, in the kindest definition of the word. Instead of taking out all of his intestines, Sasuke skates across his side, probably hitting his kidney or liver and obliterating one of the pouches of clay.

Sasuke turns on his heel, already going for a rebound after the stumbling Akatsuki member.

Deidara’s bloody grin registers just moments before the three small white blobs fly into view inches from both of their chests.

The second, admittedly less smart, option of dealing with Deidara’s insanity is to be just as insane as he is.

He barely manages to snag the red-clouded cloak and jerk it closer to him, pulling back as he did so, before the three concussive blasts send them both flying in opposite directions.

Sasuke blacks out.

It can’t have been for long, because when he opens his eyes there’s still smoke and dust drifting in the air from the many explosions, and his ears are still ringing, and in the background he can hear someone yelling.

_ Fuck _ that hurts.

His chest feels a bit like it was cracked open and put up on display, his skin feels a bit like charred wood, and his nerves feel a bit like a million chirping birds.

He wonders if this is what Naruto felt like when he shoved Chidori into his chest.

“Obito!”

Belatedly, Sasuke remembers that breathing is something he should be doing. He coughs, dislodging dust from his throat, and fights the whine climbing up his throat.

_ Fuck _ .

Someone comes to a sliding stop next to him. He opens his eyes to see pink hair and green eyes, and forces himself to sit up and ignore the screaming in his chest. Bruised ribs. Probably. Not broken, because Sasuke’s had broken bones before and this can’t compare.

It appears the half-assed lightning shield he summoned managed to do its job, slightly.

Sasuke belatedly realizes that Sakura is talking to him, her voice sharp in a way that can only be done by a medic, as she snaps her fingers in front of his eyes.

“Concussion?” she asks briskly.

Sasuke shakes his head and regrets it. “No.”

She raises an eyebrow. “I’m not sure I believe you.”

He shakes his head again, this time trying to clear out the cobwebs that keep crowding his thoughts, and looks around. “Deidara?”

Her brow wrinkles in confusion only for a moment before comprehension dawns and she looks pointedly in the direction of Orochimaru’s hideout. Sasuke follows her line of sight to see Deidara struggling to his feet as Sasori watches with a disinterested expression. Orochimaru, on the other hand, seems split between amusement and annoyance, his irritated frown directed at Kabuto and the man he is supporting on his shoulder. It takes Sasuke a moment to recognize him under the blood and puss that makes up his face.

Holy shit, Naruto absolutely  _ destroyed _ the imposter Uchiha.

Sasuke risks a glance at the orange clad teenager, who’s hovering beside Yamato on Sakura’s other side and looking none the worse for wear.

Sasuke really hopes that the divine retribution is because of something the imposter said and not Naruto’s attempt at payback for what happened in the Valley of the End. He can’t say that he wants anger like that directed his way any time soon.

Deidara is a complete mess, to Sasuke’s complete satisfaction. His side is bleeding heavily, both his hands wrapped protectively around it enough that he’s nearly bent over double. He’s swaying on his feet, trying to stay standing without support, and the Akatsuki cloak is charred ribbons on his front. His face is bloody and already developing dark bruises, which makes Sasuke feel a bit better about his own black eye that he can feel swelling and obscuring his vision slightly.

The two sides spend a moment glaring at each other, gauging chances of victory and defeat. The Akatsuki’s side has definitely taken more damage, with both Deidara and the Uchiha out for the count and Kabuto looking a little worse for wear. On the other hand, Orochimaru and Sasori are completely fresh, while everyone on Sasuke’s side is worn out in some way.

Sasuke, admittedly, more than the others.

He pulls himself to his feet, Sakura’s steadying hand on his shoulder.

“You good, Obito?” Naruto asks, giving him a once-over to try to spot any serious injury.

“I’ll live.”

Just a few steps away, a metallic glint catches Sasuke’s eye, and he recognizes his sword embedded in the ground where it landed after the explosion. He detours over to pick it up, tearing his eyes away from the discussion Sasori and Deidara seem to be having that is just loud enough to hear but too quiet to interpret in order to look over the blade for any nicks or dents. It is too well-made of a weapon to mistreat like he has been. Mournfully, Sasuke thinks of the blade’s other half, still embedded in the giant snake’s brain matter.

“We may need to consider a retreat,” Yamato suggests, his eyes not leaving the Akatsuki members.

It pulls Sasuke’s attention from his abused weaponry enough for him to growl. “I’m not running.”

“Yeah!” Naruto steps up beside Sasuke, close enough that he can feel the heat emanating from the orange-clad shinobi. “Let’s take these assholes down.”

“Our mission is done, Naruto.” Yamato argues. “You said it yourself. Sasuke isn’t here.”

Naruto stiffens, but nothing more. “No, but Obito’s mission isn’t done. And I’m not leaving him alone against these bastards.”

Sasuke blinks in surprise, turning to stare at Naruto. He’s not sure why the declaration catches him off guard so much, because it’s such a Naruto thing to say, but it does.

Movement from the Akatsuki’s side draws Sasuke’s attention just in time to see Deidara shove both hands into his remaining clay pouch, an angry scowl on his features. It seems they’ve come to a decision as well.

“Ready for round two?!” Sasuke yells over at them, a smirk forming on his lips.

“Are  _ you _ , Cockroach!” Deidara yells back, causing Sasuke’s smirk to grow wider. Then Deidara grins, a confusing look in his eye. “That’s just too bad. I think we’re done playing now, un.”

It takes Sasuke a second too long to comprehend what he means. By the time he does, a giant bird is spawning from each of the bomb expert’s hands, and Orochimaru is sending a torrent of snakes at them.

Naruto forms a Rasengan almost instantly, his clone disappearing into smoke as he hits the attack head on with the fan of death. It sprays scales and blood and other organic matter everywhere, including on himself and his teammates, but Sasuke’s already running, desperately trying to close the distance as the Akatsuki and Orochimaru’s group mount the birds and launch into the sky.

“No!”

Deidara shoots a snarky grin at Sasuke as they rise further into the air. “Say hi to Tobi for me!” he laughs, his voice already drifting out of range.

“Son of a  _ bitch _ !” Anger shoots through him, a hot, reckless thing that Tobi is always saying is going to get him killed, and without thinking Sasuke launches his sword in the air, sending it spinning end over end like a throwing knife.

He doesn’t see what it hits, but the sound of Deidara’s cursing is music to his ears.

A scuffing sound announced Naruto sliding up next to Sasuke, his neck also craned to look at the disappearing birds. “Did that make you feel better?”

Sasuke sighs, letting his head drop. “Yeah, it did.” Little good it does him now. Tobi is going to give him so much shit about this.

“Was it worth it?”

“Probably not.”

In the resulting silence, Yamato makes a vague sound of disgust. “Naruto, next time someone attacks you with fragile organic matter, maybe you shouldn’t use the jutsu that’s essentially the most powerful fan in the world to combat it.”

Sasuke turns on his heel to look at the other Konoha shinobi, all of which are covered nearly head to toe in chunky snake juice. He takes a moment to absorb the utter look of resignation on Sakura’s face and the disgruntlement on Yamato’s and the way Sai’s mouth is puckering ever so slightly in an attempt to remain emotionless regarding the matter.

Naruto isn’t exempt from the chunky bit soup, and is rubbing his red-stained hair sheepishly.

Maybe it’s a bit hysterical, but Sasuke can’t help it. He laughs. He points vaguely at the disgusted Konoha shinobi and nearly doubles over from the near-giggles shaking erupting out of his mouth. It vibrates through his chest and sends it into a new wave of protest, but he honestly couldn’t care less.

_ I missed you _ , he almost says.

Instead he waves off Sakura’s concern for his sanity (it was a lost cause long ago) and says, “You’re all disgusting right now.”

Naruto draws back, his face set into an offended scowl. “ _ Us? _ What about  _ you _ ?”

Sasuke looks down at himself. Naruto’s not wrong. On top of the initial layer of dried brain matter that previously coated him, there is now a liberal coat of dust and ash, as well as some blood that can only be from Deidara. On top of all of that, Sasuke didn’t exactly get off scot free from the Rasengan soup either, even if it is much less than the others.

He’s an absolute disaster of muck.

Sasuke shrugs.

They should have seen him after Obito made him go through the aptly named Disaster Swamp on a hunt for Zetsu. This is nothing in comparison.

Still, he’s already planning to burn his entire outfit the moment he gets to the nearest village.

Decided, Sasuke sets off towards the fallen corpse of the giant five headed snake.

“Um, where are you going?” Naruto asks, treading uncertainly in Sasuke’s footsteps. He has that same look on his face as when he was asking if Sasuke has ever “looted a dead body, you know, under orders, because you’re, you know, ANBU, and you guys do stuff like that,” like he’s curious but not  _ really  _ sure he wants to know.

(Sasuke had debated toying with the Uzumaki, telling him all sorts of gruesome horror stories about made-up body disposal jobs, but he’s never been very good at lying, and, honestly, he’d probably end up laughing before he made it past the first sentence.)

Drawing to a stop beside the lavender snake’s head, Sasuke takes a deep breath and tries not to think too hard about what he’s doing. “That’s the sixth sword I’ve lost in seven months. I’m not gonna let there be a seventh.” In a low mutter, he reminds himself, “No way will Tobi let me live it down if I make it a monthly habit.” He drops to his hands and knees, almost level with the mangled eyeball that smells of some horrible cross between raw fish and chicken barbeque even through his mask, and holds his breath.

Just don’t think about it, he reminds himself, right before he shoves his entire arm into the gushy chasm of electrified eyeball and brain and starts rooting around for something that could maybe pass as a sword.

A loud chorus of  _ Ew _ sounded from the Konoha peanut gallery.

Sasuke bites back a laugh, because that would be disgusting and then he would throw up and expose himself and that would be absolutely awkward for everyone.

Still, when he draws back away from the snake head, his newly liberated sword grasped tightly in his slimy fingers, Sasuke can’t help but throw a dazzling smile at Naruto that he knows he can’t see, and quip lightly, “Does this count as that body looting you were talking about, Naruto?”

Naruto goes an interesting shade of green, and for a moment Sasuke finds himself able to brush aside the knowledge that an Akatsuki-affiliated Orochimaru is the worst kind of news and that Tobi will be decidedly  _ pissed off _ about it.

Instead, he allows himself to laugh.

God, he’s gonna miss these idiots.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone is so great and all of the amazing support I've been getting honestly makes my day. We're past the hard part for me now, so hopefully I will be able to get chapters out a bit faster than once a month (oops). Thanks for sticking with me despite the long wait.
> 
> Please review and tell me what you liked, your thoughts, predictions for the future, anything really. I love reading reviews and do a little jig every time I see a notification.
> 
> Bye for now!


	4. The Tide Grows Higher

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re not actually ANBU, are you?”  
> Sasuke stops in his tracks, his eyes finding Yamato. He can’t say he’s surprised. He’s slipped up too many times this mission.  
> The Konoha captain’s stance isn’t confrontational, though. Instead he leans against a tree with his arms folded, looking for all the world as if he were discussing the weather.  
> He’s alone, which does surprise Sasuke a bit.  
> “No.”  
> No point in lying. The cat’s out of the bag.  
> Yamato glances away, his expression not changing from mild curiosity. “You don’t act like an ANBU.”

Sasuke doesn’t know how, but Naruto is inventing completely new stages of grief in order to avoid the whole ‘acceptance’ thing. It’s quite impressive, really.

“You know, in retrospect, it was pretty obvious it wasn’t him.”

Or it would be if it weren’t so annoying.

This is the  _ third _ time he’s circled back to how  _ obvious _ the mistaken identity was. He has also conveniently bypassed the fact that ‘Obito’ had literally  _ told _ them days before.

“I mean, the bastard didn’t even call me an idiot. Not once.”

Sasuke tries to project his annoyed scowl over his mask so Naruto could see just how  _ done _ he is with the orange idiot’s shit.

“And the hair was all wrong. I mean, it had the spikes, and obviously it was black, but it had the  _ wrong _ spikes, you know?”

Though, by the way Naruto’s attention is obviously more entranced by the big, gaping expanse of nothing that is his internal thoughts (a marvel, truly, that someone’s head could be so vastly empty), the effort would most likely be wasted.

Sasuke tries to find an ally to share in his pain, but his glances at Yamato yield only blatant exhaustion on the man’s dusty features, and obviously Sai is too busy pretending to be human to hear a word Naruto says.

Sakura’s only indication that she feels even an inkling of annoyance at her teammate is the progressively more aggressive bandaging she’s doing around Sasuke’s shoulder, each tug of bandages feeling like she would rather chuck the unfortunate soul nearest to her (Sasuke) at Naruto to shut him up. Sasuke, secure behind his mask, allows himself to wince as she pulls especially tight.

Maybe this new stage of grief is a suicidal urge of death by Sakura, just to complete the violent circle that is their completely fucked up team.

“But you know the most obvious thing?”

Perhaps it would be better for her to just do it and get it over with. Sasuke’s not sure he can handle hearing what Naruto  _ thinks _ is the most obvious indication that Orochimaru’s lackey most definitely isn’t his long lost friend.

“There was no Chidori to my Rasengan. I know for a fact that Sasuke would use Chidori the moment I pull my Rasengan out.”

Oh, God, kill him now.

Apparently reading skepticism in his unwilling audience, Naruto rushes to clarify. “I mean, they have history, you know? Our two special things.”

Maybe Sasuke should try a substitution jutsu and hightail it out of here. He’s already late to the rendezvous he’s supposed to have with Obito. He might be able to negate the damage if he leaves now and literally sprints the whole way.

Finally, Yamato pulls himself out of his daze long enough for him to moan. “Naruto,  _ enough _ .”

Blessedly, he falls silent.

For about three seconds.

“It’s just… where could he be? I mean, maybe Orochimaru changed his face and erased his memory to make him into a mindless minion. Maybe-”

Dragging his hands up and down his face, Yamato groans.

“Fucking hell, Naruto, shut the fuck up,” Sasuke finally snaps.

It’s painful. This loop that Naruto’s stuck in— it’s not just slightly amusing or extremely irritating. Naruto is doing everything he possibly can to avoid acknowledging the fact that his teammate is gone, has disappeared into the wind without a trace, is possibly even dead. He’s going in circles in his own mind, forcing an optimistic smile on his face, and it’s  _ painful _ for Sasuke to watch.

Naruto and Sakura are suffering, and he’s  _ right here _ . Only a ceramic mask separates them. He’s even shirtless right now, showing more skin than he has in literal weeks.

And Naruto is going on about plastic surgery and brainwashing.

Sakura sits heavily on Sasuke’s log and rubs her eyes tiredly. “This entire mission is a disaster.”

Everyone falls silent, Naruto absently scuffing the ground with the heel of his foot.

Somehow, the silence is more painful than Naruto’s rants.

“If Orochimaru had him, he would be using him, one way or another,” Sasuke says finally, the only consolation he can give.

It would be smarter to stay silent, to let Konoha believe that Uchiha Sasuke was murdered by Orochimaru years ago. After all, Obito  _ did _ say that the only better cover than the imposter Uchiha is being dead. Now that Orochimaru’s minion has been debunked, people are going to be looking into what exactly happened to ‘the last Uchiha’. It brings suspicion to everyone hiding their face, which is a big problem for Obito and Sasuke.

But Sasuke can’t let his old team suffer like this.

“I mean, that imposter Uchiha didn’t even have the Sharingan. No way would Orochimaru give Sasuke up for a replacement like that.”

Naruto sends Sasuke a watery smile, but it’s more of a ‘thanks for trying but you really didn’t help’ smile.

“When I was off with Ero-Sennin…” Naruto says, not meeting any of their eyes, “there was, like, this two month period where we heard absolutely nothing. There weren’t sightings of Sasuke anywhere. Not with Orochimaru. Not with anyone.” He takes a stuttering breath, biting his lip for a long moment as he attempts to keep his composure. Sasuke wants to run away before he has to hear any more. “It was like he just… disappeared between point A and point B, you know? And I was terrified.”

Fucking hell.

“I was so fucking scared because we had no idea where he was. I just… didn’t know. And then one day, Ero-Sennin walks in waving a scroll. ‘Guess what, brat?’ he said. ‘The Uchiha’s been sighted burning down a few buildings.’” Naruto wipes his eyes self-consciously. “I think Ero-Sennin saw how much it was messing with me, because he was nearly as excited as I was. God, you would think that we’d found a giant pile of gold by how fast we crossed the continent.”

He laughs awkwardly, a quiet, broken thing. “Course, when we got there, there was nothing but ash, but still. It was nice  _ knowing _ . It felt like I still had a shot, you know? To fulfill my promise. To bring him home.”

Sasuke’s on his feet before he realizes what he’s doing. The sudden movement draws everyone’s attention, and he can feel their solemn eyes boring into him.

“I’m going on a walk,” he mutters, snagging his still slightly damp shirt from the tree branch it was drying on and striding deeper into the foliage without another word.

He’s not running, though he probably should. He should take off through the trees and meet up with Obito— tell him all the different ways they are six ways screwed to Sunday.

Whatever deal Sasori brokered with Orochimaru, it’s safe to say that he’s now back in the Akatsuki’s fold. Mission failed.

Through Sasuke’s own idiocy, Obito’s name is once again floating in the air, when before it was safely buried six feet under. Not only that, but the people who know it are also the ones closest to the only one who has any connection to it. Kakashi isn’t an idiot, despite how he acts sometimes. He’ll start to fill in the blanks, and he’ll probably be right.

Sasuke’s own anonymity is also at stake. No way will Naruto give up, even after this. He’s only going to stir up more things that need to stay hidden.

And Naruto has once again gained the attention of the Akatsuki.

Dammit.

“You’re not actually ANBU, are you?”

Sasuke stops in his tracks, his eyes finding Yamato. He can’t say he’s surprised. He’s slipped up too many times this mission.

The Konoha captain’s stance isn’t confrontational, though. Instead he leans against a tree with his arms folded, looking for all the world as if he were discussing the weather.

He’s alone, which does surprise Sasuke a bit.

“No.”

No point in lying. The cat’s out of the bag.

Yamato glances away, his expression not changing from mild curiosity. “You don’t act like an ANBU.”

Sasuke shrugs. He has no idea what an actual ANBU is supposed to act like, so he’ll take the more experienced man’s word for it. It doesn’t matter anyways. This cover was never meant to stand up to close scrutiny.

“Not Kiri either, huh?”

“Nope.”

Yamato sighs, sounding more tired than defensive. “Yeah.”

Curious, Sasuke lifts an inquisitive hand, gesturing for more of a response than just ‘yeah’.

The captain, experienced at reading people without having their facial expressions to go off of, interprets the movement correctly. “Most shinobi from Kiri don’t specialize in Fire and Lightning jutsus.”

Whoops.

In Sasuke’s defense, a fight against S-class missing-nin wasn’t really the time to be dicking around with Water jutsus.

When Yamato doesn’t move to act on the new information, Sasuke finds himself shifting on his feet. Is this the part where he should run?

“That Akatsuki, the one with the blond hair, he knew you.”

Sasuke grimaces. “‘Knew’ is a strong word. We’ve fought against each other before.”

Yamato raises an eyebrow. “Cockroach,” he says, and Sasuke finds his grimace turning even more sour.

“A few times,” he admits. “He thought he blew me to smithereens during our first fight. I thought he did too.” A shark grin breaks out. “Three weeks later, I was stabbing him in the spleen.”

Yamato snorts. He steps away from the tree, approaching Sasuke in a way that is supposed to be disarming but just leaves him on edge. His hands are jabbed in his pockets and there’s a sway in his step that is one hundred percent Kakashi’s influence.

“Who are you, Obito?”

Guess they’re done dancing around the question, then.

“I’m nobody,” Sasuke says.

He raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Nobody that can take on S-class missing-nin? Nobody that doesn’t even flinch at a Jinchuuriki’s chakra? Nobody that has a personal grudge against Orochimaru? Nobody that’s on a first name basis with someone on the Akatsuki?” Yamato crosses his arms, looking utterly unimpressed. “Wanna change that answer, Nobody?”

If his time with Tobi has taught Sasuke anything, it’s that flippancy is the best way to throw someone off the conversation. “Nope. Just your everyday, S-class, missing-nin hunting, Nobody.”

Yamato’s searching eyes scan from Sasuke’s feet to his mask, a calculating look on his face that would scare Sasuke more if he hadn’t lived with Uchiha Obito for over two years. The maniac looks at everyone like they’re shogi pieces and he’s weighing the pros and cons of sacrificing them. Yamato’s look is very similar, but utterly lacking in the air of ruthlessness that tells Sasuke he will do  _ absolutely anything _ for his goal.

...He should probably stop comparing Yamato to Obito before he decides that he wants an actual, caring sensei that won’t throw him to S-class missing-nin like shark bait and ends up going back to Konoha with his tail between his legs.

“Do you know where Sasuke is?”

Sasuke opens his mouth to throw out another careless ‘no’. It's on the tip of his tongue, an easy reply that wouldn't put any more suspicion on Sasuke, because why would a random stranger care about a missing kid?

It gets stuck in his throat and strangles in his dry mouth.

By the time he’s swallowed the lump, his silence has grown far too long for a simple ‘no’ to be anything but a lie.

_ ‘I was so fucking scared because we had no idea where he was.’ _

Sasuke finds he can’t meet Yamato’s eyes, and stares into the foliage instead. He has to swallow again before he feels able to speak. “I meant what I said before. If Orochimaru had him, he would have used him.” It’s a miracle when his voice comes out strong and unwavering.

_ “Look me in the eyes when you lie to me, brat,” _ Obito’s scathing voice echoes in Sasuke’s head.  _ “If you can’t convince  _ yourself _ enough to look at the person you’re lying to, there’s no way in hell you can convince them.” _ It’s one of the first things Sasuke learned from him, the very foundation of the art of lying. With how much difficulty he’s having with this topic, though, it seems he needs to go back to the basics.

He forces his gaze up to meet Yamato’s, and makes his voice as flat and disinterested as possible. “I can’t help you other than that.”

Yamato holds Sasuke’s gaze for so long that his eyes nearly start watering, but the Konoha shinobi eventually breaks the staring contest with another sigh. He nods resignedly and looks off towards where they left the others.

“What about the Akatsuki?”

Sasuke’s brain struggles briefly to switch tracks. “What about them?”

Yamato mistakes Sasuke’s confusion for him being intentionally difficult and gives Sasuke a wry smile. “I’m assuming you have more information on them than you can find in the everyday bingo book.”

Well, he’s not wrong. Still, the amount that Sasuke  _ does _ know (courtesy of Tobi) is suspicious no matter how you look at it.

“Bold of you to assume I would just tell you, even if I  _ did _ know,” Sasuke says in a dry voice.

Even if Sasuke were a good samaritan (which he’s definitely not), he still wouldn’t tell Yamato what he knows about the Akatsuki.

Putting aside the more selfish reason of the bargaining power it gives them with Konoha should they ever need it, just giving the information away to anyone from the village that asks is far too dangerous for both Sasuke and Konoha. Akatsuki has its fair share of spies within the village, despite Obito and Sasuke’s attempts to root them out. When Konoha ends up with more information about Akatsuki than they care for, that’s the moment that Akatsuki decides Konoha is too dangerous for its own good.

Pein’s focus on world domination kept Konoha off his hit list for this long. Not even the lure of the Kyuubi could convince him to attack one of the five strongest villages and bring the other four down on him.

If Konoha starts posing an actual threat to his plans, it might tip the scales to make Pein lean more towards the ‘world destruction’ route.

Sasuke would rather avoid that if he can.

Besides, they have other ways to exchange information with Konoha than a creepy captain that Sasuke has just met. Ways much more subtle than an official report by the world’s loudest shinobi.

“They’re after Naruto. We both have a common enemy in the Akatsuki.”

Sasuke huffs a small laugh.

He’s going for the exchange of information route. It’s not the worst approach Yamato could have had, Sasuke admits. He almost goes along with it. There has to be things that Yamato, with his keen eyes that see far too much, knows about the village that Tobi doesn’t. Not to mention his close relationship with Kakashi. Sasuke could find a way to ask about the jounin’s rather conspicuous absence from the rest of his team— a question that’s been nagging him for days now.

But, Sasuke isn’t Obito. He isn’t a good liar, and he has no guarantee that someone like Yamato won’t be able to get him to slip up.

So, in the most unhelpful voice he can manage, Sasuke suggests mildly, “Maybe you should avoid people wearing black cloaks with red clouds on them.”

The reaction is slight, a mere facial tick that most people wouldn’t notice, but the slight twitch of Yamato’s brows conveys his annoyance at the reply.

To emphasize that he’s done with this conversation, Sasuke begins to make his way back towards camp, not quite daring to put his back to Yamato despite his feigned relaxation. Pausing, Sasuke decides to throw him a bone. It might even keep some unfortunate spies from meeting an unnecessary death. “I wonder if they have any symbolism. The rainclouds, I mean.”

If he’s smart, it will warn him away from Amegakure.

If he’s not, Sasuke has seriously underestimated Kakashi’s protege.

“Obito.” The tone of Yamato’s voice makes him hesitate. “If you didn’t care, you would have already taken off.”

Sasuke doesn’t want to think about it, so he pretends he didn’t hear a single word.

_______________________________________________________________

The blond haired munitions expert has quite the interesting ability, Orochimaru notes, restraining himself from poking the malleable material the clay bird transformed into. He restrains himself to simple observation, effortlessly muting the less… desirable aspects of Sasori’s new partner. He’s currently maintaining a steady rant— his second wind found once Kabuto generated enough chakra to put his healing to use on the second most injured member of their party.

Orochimaru is an S-class missing nin, one of the members of the Legendary Sannin, killer of the God of Shinobi Sarutobi Hiruzen, so he refrains from calling the blond a wimp.

Sasori, on the other hand, has no compunctions about such insults.

“Deidara, if you don’t shut all of your equally annoying mouths for the rest of the flight, that sword with be the least of your problems.”

With a bit of surprise, Orochimaru finds that he’s missed the puppeteer’s perpetually bad temper.

Deidara, thankfully, falls silent in favor of a sullen scowl and a few grimaces as Kabuto pulls his bisected arm back together.

With a dark chuckle, Orochimaru spares a glance for the aforementioned sword, laid aside and still glistening with the bomb expert’s dried blood. The improbability of the attack was so ludicrous that he has to question if it was devastating skill or insane luck.

Quite the contrast against Uchiha Kensei, who has proved to be a disappointment in more ways than one.

The illegitimate Uchiha sits on the far edge of the clay bird, his knees curled to his chest and drifting in and out of a faint concussion-fueled daze. Kabuto’s healing has eliminated some of the swelling, but it also accelerated the discoloration of the bruises on his face, leaving the majority of it a pus-like yellow or sickly green.

The blatant visible signs of his weakness makes Orochimaru want to throw him off of the bird.

Because Uchiha Kensei is only an Uchiha in the most lenient sense of the word. Nothing ties the poor son of a prostitute to the famed Uchiha clan other than a reckless failure to use contraception and the ridiculously strong genes that gave him his notably handsome features (well, at least, he looked handsome  _ before _ the Jinchuuriki brat caved his face in).

His chakra reserves, while high, are nothing compared to an Uchiha. Despite a propensity for fire jutsus, he lacks the passion and determination prevalent in a Will of Fire. The worst part, however, is the Sharingan. The other ineptitudes won’t matter once Orochimaru takes his body, but time and time again Kensei has failed to awaken any signs of a Sharingan, no matter what stressor Orochimaru presents (and he has tried many).

Looking back on young Sasuke’s stunning amounts of potential, Uchiha Ken falls so incredibly, devastatingly, embarrassingly short.

But still, the genetic possibility for the Sharingan still exists. Perhaps Orochimaru won’t be able to provoke it naturally, but he’s a scientist. He enjoys a little experimentation.

Orochimaru is pulled out of his new, far more interesting, thought process when the clay bird takes a sharp dive towards a jutted and lifeless mountain face. Sasori doesn’t seem concerned by the development, so Orochimaru watches with feigned disinterest as it flies  _ into _ the mountain.

The bird draws up short, beating its fat white wings two times and hovering briefly before popping out of existence entirely.

Their group lands lightly, even the most injured of the bunch instinctively keeping their feet.

Orochimaru cases the room quickly, noting the high chakra signatures lurking in the shadows. Some of them he recognizes. There’s Pein, and Orochimaru thinks snidely that to be greeted by the leader himself must be a  _ true _ privilege. Itachi; his presence stings his pride a little, but Orochimaru brushes it aside. Of course there’s Sasori and Deidara, lingering behind the snake Sannin, subtly cutting of his retreat (as if they could stop him).

There’s a huge chakra signature lurking just to the side, a large man leaning against the wall beside Itachi with a sharp-toothed grin. Orochimaru had heard that Hoshigaki Kisame had joined, but he hasn’t encountered him personally until now. Tailless Tailed Beast indeed.

The last, Orochimaru doesn’t know: a gray haired young man leaning a large, three-bladed scythe.

A spark of curiosity flares. Three previous members are missing.

Zetsu's absence is not odd. He always has things to do, and people to spy on.

But the other two… Now where, oh, where could Pein’s second in command and immortal treasurer gone off to?

“Orochimaru. We’re glad to see you made it.” He doesn’t sound all that excited. The purple eyes skim past Orochimaru and Sasori to the more damaged members of their party. “Though not without difficulty, it would appear.”

There was a question in that statement, the knowledge that Orochimaru’s easy acceptance is unexpected and utterly suspicious. They expected to have to work at it, Orochimaru guesses, almost wanting to laugh. And they wouldn’t have been wrong. If that Kiri ANBU hadn’t hounded him so thoroughly into a corner, Sasori would have had a much more difficult time even getting an audience with the snake Sannin.

Orochimaru lets his lips curve into a cold smile. “Yes. I had some interesting house guests when Sasori arrived.”

The blond brat immediately protests his exclusion, an angry snarl splitting past his own bruises.

Sasori speaks over him without batting a single puppet eyelash. “Tobi’s brat was there. With some others from Konoha.”

Huffing out a laugh, Orochimaru raises an eyebrow. “It seems he’s caused some issues for the Akatsuki, hmm?”

Pein doesn’t acknowledge the taunt. “Him. And another.”

Interesting.

“Perhaps the Akatsuki’s quality has decreased of late, if you’re allowing your own muck to impede others’ business. I can’t say I enjoyed having to deal with your problem.”

Unspoken is the insinuation that Orochimaru wants nothing to do with a dying organization.

“Oh, don’t you dare put that brat on us!” The scythe-wielder, and general nuisance, says, stepping forward to wave his scythe around dramatically. “ _ You’re  _ the one that can’t keep track of his own minions.”

Now that, admittedly, stumps Orochimaru for a moment.

He has kept perfect track of every single one of his experiments. Even in death, he’s kept track of all of their bodies (the important ones, at least) for future research.

Orochimaru has both fought and observed the false Kiri ANBU in the past three months. He has shown an amazing propensity for both fire and lightning, a speed that rivals even Orochimaru, and a dual wielding style that is more at home with the samurai of Iron Country than on a shinobi.

None of Orochimaru’s experiments or subordinates have expressed that type of skill.

Except…

With sudden understanding, Orochimaru’s eyes flick to the Uchiha currently standing nearby Kiri’s Tailless Beast.

“Uchiha Sasuke,” Orochimaru wants to laugh.

Pein nods slightly. “I’m sure you remember Zetsu’s old assistant, Tobi. He went rogue years ago. It seems he picked up a stray along the way. The two of them have been a perpetual thorn in Akatsuki’s side for too long.”

Orochimaru feels a deadly smile breaking out as he sees where this is heading. “ _ He’s _ the deal our dear puppeteer was telling me about earlier.”

Akatsuki’s leader nods again. “In exchange for your services towards Akatsuki’s dream, he’s yours to do as you will,” he says with utter apathy that Orochimaru has to respect.

“Anything?”

A third nod, and Orochimaru can’t help but feel his interest unfurl even further.

Still, there is one issue with this deal…

“And you have no thoughts on the matter, Itachi-kun?” Orochimaru says, watching the Uchiha carefully for any sign of a flinch.

Nothing, and that sends shivers of delight up Orochimaru’s spine.

“He’s mine to deal with if he gets to me first,” is all Itachi says, sounding nearly as apathetic as Pein. Nearly. It seems young Itachi still has some feelings for his brother, though Orochimaru wouldn’t go so far as to label it as concern.

Fascinating.

Orochimaru keeps Itachi’s cold stare as the gears in his mind turn. It’s a gamble, this deal. Sasuke’s body is still something that he desires greatly, especially in light of Sasuke’s great progress over only a two year time period.

If Itachi gets to Sasuke first though… then the whole thing would be pointless, wouldn’t it?

...no. It wouldn’t.

The fight between the two Uchiha is guaranteed to be a show of epic proportions. The loser will be dead, which is an unfortunate loss, but the winner… weak enough to be ripe for the taking, in the aftermath.

A win-win situation, then.

But worth pledging his services to in the first place?

Not yet.

“I accept your offer,” Orochimaru says, as pleasant as a snake. “In exchange for Sasuke, you will have my services.”

Pein nods, his eyes finally moving away from Orochimaru as his attention begins to turn away to other tasks.

“The services of my subordinates, on the other hand, call for a higher price.”

There it is, finally. A twitch in the otherwise unflappable leader. Orochimaru has finally thrown him off script.

His eyes narrowed in irritation, Pein takes a step closer, conveying more interest in the conversation than he has ever shown to Orochimaru’s face.

“And what do you propose?”

“I left Konoha because its morals impeded my research. I’ve found independence suits me nicely.”

A frown creases Pein’s brow. “You will have unlimited access to any enemy. Ame citizens are off-limits.” Standing in front of the rest of the Akatsuki, Pein is obscured from Itachi’s visibility when his eyes flicker towards the Uchiha. “My explicit permission is required before you do anything to any ally, consenting or not.”

Orochimaru smiles without teeth. “Of course.”

“Welcome back to Akatsuki,” Pein says, turning away without further fanfare. “Kisame will get you settled.”

He’s halfway through the door before Orochimaru speaks up again. “Inquiring minds wonder about the whereabouts of your angelic enforcer.” The leader’s spine stiffens, though he doesn’t turn back to face Orochimaru. The very air around vibrates with tension, every member of the Akatsuki growing tense at the mention of Konan. Orochimaru tries to keep the elation off his face at the reaction. “It wasn’t often I would see her not by your side. And I couldn’t possibly forget Zetsu and the ever-pleasant Kakazu.”

“The fact that Tobi wasn’t by Sasuke’s side hunting you down leads me to believe that he has something to do with Zetsu’s current absence.” Pein answers stiffly, not sounding all that concerned, if a bit annoyed. “The traitor has expressed a particular hate for his previous companion.”

What, Orochimaru wonders, could the plant-man have done to inspire such an avid attack dog on his trail? Clearly both Zetsu and Tobi hold a much greater significance than Orochimaru previously estimated. That they were so dedicated to hiding it can only bring Orochimaru to wonder what other secrets are held by the two. Fascinating, to say the least.

“Kakazu is gone, courtesy of your lost pet and his new keeper,” Pein continues levelly.

The tense set the other members’ shoulders is indication enough of the fate of Konan, though Orochimaru is capable enough to follow the current trend.

“As for Konan’s absence…” Pein says, finally turning to fix Orochimaru with a rage burning in his eyes and sending involuntary chills down his spine. “This is your one restriction, Orochimaru. For what he has done, Tobi’s life is  _ mine _ .”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe all of the support I've gotten for this fic! I'm honestly so excited to keep moving forward!
> 
> This story is getting so complex that I have notes so I don't forget anything as I write, and I just wanted to share the notes I had for this part.  
>  Ahem. "Shit happens (Sasuke tells them that the Uchiha with Orochimaru isn’t Sasuke but they don’t believe him because how would he know what Sasuke looks like and where the fuck else would he be? Sasuke is having a minor crisis trying to deal with them.) and they BOND with FRIENDSHIP and LOVE. They find out Sasuke wasn’t lying about fake Sasuke and are all like “Then where the fuck is Sasuke?” and he’s all “idontknowwhywouldiknowimjustalowlyninjawhywouldyouthinkiwouldknowwheresasukeiswhothefuckissasukehahahaha”".  
> I think it may have accidentally gotten a bit more serious than previously planned. Poor Naruto.
> 
> Please continue to comment on your favorite parts and other ideas you guys have. I look at all of them when I write the chapter, and they act as such inspiration for me.


	5. FUBAR Antihereos and Villainous Villains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Wanna tell me how this happened?”
> 
> “Your Sharingan is an overpowered cheat is what happened,” Sasuke snarls.
> 
> Obito hums. “Well, I’m sure Pein will take your complaint under advisement when you decide to whine about the Rinnegan.” He raises his crooked eyebrow with a deadpan expression.
> 
> “He’s less of an asshole than you, that’s for damn sure.”
> 
> “That hurts.” The older shinobi holds a hand over his chest and Sasuke rolls his eyes.
> 
> “Yeah, you know what else hurts? The extra crispy exploded meatsack that you’re shoving into the ground right now!”

The Chunin Exam One Month Rest Period; almost three years ago:

“Dobe.” Naruto has just enough strength to lift his face from the dusty ground, feeling small gravel and sand flaking off of his face, and direct a semi-heated glare at the bastard. Sasuke looks like hell, his shirt stiff with dried sweat and covered head to toe in rock dust, a few twigs lodged in his hair for good measure, but Naruto can’t quite bring himself to care too much. He hurts in places he didn’t even know existed, somehow even his tongue feeling tired from yelling at Ero-Sennin so much, and he can’t quite call up the energy to respond with anything beyond a growl.

Sasuke doesn’t seem to get the message, his foot scuffing the ground inches from Naruto’s face and getting dust in his eyes and nose. “Come on Dobe, get up.”

Even the prodding is more lackluster than usual, exhaustion in every word. Naruto wonders how hard Kakashi-sensei is working Sasuke, and then decides that it can’t be any harder than what Jiraiya-sensei is making him do. Kakashi-sensei’s a lazy bastard, even if he is an amazing shinobi. He’s probably just making Sasuke run laps around the village.

He sure as hell isn’t teaching Sasuke how to summon a huge ass frog, that’s for damn sure.

“Dead last.”

Oh, great, he’s pulling out the names now. As if it will make Naruto any more likely to leave this comfy little bed he’s got going. He probably just wants to steal his spot. Naruto definitely found the softest spot of dirt in existence, and there’s no way in hell he’s giving it up. He’s even made good friends with the rock jabbing into his stomach. Reggy is a good buddy, now that Naruto can’t feel the prodding anymore. It’s kinda numb in that area. It’s kinda numb everywhere.

“Hey. Naruto.”

“Go find your own patch of dirt.”

Naruto’s face is squished into the ground again, so he can’t see Sasuke’s face, but he assumes that bastard is scowling pretty fiercely.

“I don’t want a patch of dirt, Dobe. I want you to quit making a fool of yourself and drooling on the ground in the middle of the street. Team Seven is already a enough of a laughing stock as it is because of you.”

“Go die in a hole, Teme.”

“You go die in a hole.”

That was a pathetic comeback. Absolutely shameful. Point, Naruto, and he’s not even trying. This is why he’s infinitely better than Sasuke.

“I’m  _ trying to _ .” Naruto replies, rubbing his face even deeper into the dirt. What he wouldn’t do for a pillow right now.

Sasuke, frustratingly, doesn’t leave. His feet just linger there at the edge of Naruto’s periphery, so covered in dust that Naruto can’t even see the original color of his shoes anymore. There’s a few places where his toes are coated in blood, shallow gouges tearing up his flesh and a broken toenail on his big toe that looks kinda painful. Naruto can smell the disgusting feet smell from here, and he just wants Sasuke to  _ go away _ so he doesn’t have to deal with the bastard’s disgusting feet anymore.

“You’re gross right now,” Naruto mutters, turning his face in the opposite direction so he doesn’t have to look at them anymore. A sharp rock digs into his cheek and Naruto bemoans the loss of his makeshift pillow.

Sasuke snorts. “Have you seen yourself?”

No, and really, Naruto could care less, so he doesn't bother to reply. Maybe his face will get numb enough where he doesn’t feel the pebble anymore. The arrangement worked well enough with Reggy, who’s still making itself right at home in Naruto’s stomach.

“Come on Naruto, get up,” Sasuke sighs wearily. Why is he back on that tangent? “I want to go to bed.”

Then go, Naruto doesn’t bother to say.

He hears the sound of grinding dirt, Sasuke’s feet finally moving away from his head, and he praises everyone that he can think of that the bastard is finally leaving him be.

Except Sasuke’s not leaving.

Naruto doesn’t quite understand what’s happening until he’s already standing, propped on Sasuke’s shoulder with one arm wrapped around his teammate’s shoulders and Sasuke holding onto his wrist to keep him there. Sasuke’s other arm is wrapped around Naruto’s waist, and this feels familiar in a way that leaves a warm feeling in Naruto’s chest.

“Let’s go, Dobe. I’m not gonna drag you.”

Naruto puts one foot forward and lets Sasuke shuffle him forward, heading towards Naruto’s apartment. He dips his head to hide the smile he can feel twitching upwards, a sense of something new and amazing burning in his blood.

He thinks it might be relief. A sense of belonging he’s never had before.

He thinks he might actually not hate Sasuke. In fact, he’s pretty sure he loves him. For giving him this amazing feeling. For being his first friend.

He doesn’t say thanks.

But he gets the feeling that Sasuke  _ gets it _ anyways, and he doesn’t even push Sasuke off his bed when the bastard collapses there.

______________________________________________________________________________

Now:

Naruto wakes to the muffled sound of curses that have grown surprisingly familiar in recent days. He rolls over in his sleeping bag to find the culprit crouching on the opposite side of the fire, his travel sack sitting in front of him as he rifles through it quietly. An already rolled up sleeping bag sits beside Obito, waiting patiently to be packed into the top of the bag.

“You don’t have to sneak off in the middle of the night,” Naruto teases quietly, a smirk creasing his lips. “We can hear you bad mouthing your supplies just as easily during the day.”

He can’t see it, but Naruto gets the impression that Obito is rolling his eyes. Upside to this particular shitshow of a mission, it’s gotten much less difficult to read expressions behind a mask. That is… a potentially useful skill. Maybe.

Then again, maybe it’s just Obito’s expressions that Naruto has learned. Which would make it markedly less useful, considering that Naruto was probably never going to see the guy again. Even if they somehow manage some sort of chance encounter, the idiot is probably going to get himself killed.

“Well I can’t just say ‘see you never’ and stroll in the opposite direction without a care in the world. It would ruin the ‘mysterious rogue shinobi’ vibe I got going.”

Naruto deadpans. “You never had that vibe going.”

“You wouldn’t recognize it if I slammed you in the face with it with a sledgehammer.”

This time Naruto rolls his eyes, allowing his attention to drift to his conspicuously silent teammates. Confirming his suspicions, two of the sleeping bags are currently empty, and Sakura is just a bit  _ too _ deeply asleep to be anything but awake.

“Anyway,” Obito continues, finally giving up and shoving the sleeping bag and remaining food into the sack all at once, “we’re at the edge of Konoha’s border now. The Akatsuki are too chickenshit to try attacking you now.”

Naruto doubts that Konoha’s invisible border has that big of an intimidation factor to scare off a group of S-Class missing nin. More likely Obito is working off the assumption that the Akatsuki would have already tried something if they had followed the Konoha team from Orochimaru’s hideout and that Naruto is now in the clear.

In lieu of calling Obito out on the guard-dog behavior, Naruto rolls out of his sleeping bag and to his feet. “Yeah,” he says, extending a fist towards the waywards ANBU. “Show them what happens when you mess with a good shinobi.”

Obito only hesitates for a moment, and when his fist connects with Naruto it just feels  _ right _ . “Of course.”

Naruto doesn’t bother containing his grin for any longer. “But don’t take them all on, yeah? Save some for me, cause I’ll be right behind you.”

The fake ANBU snorts and turns away, shouldering his pack smoothly. “Hell no. It’s first come first serve, and I’ll be finished before you even get close, loser.”

Naruto has no plans to sit back while Obito takes on an entire group of S-class missing-nin with only one other person to help, that’s for damn sure. He raises a fist, his grin growing even larger from the thrill of competition. “Then I guess I’ll just have to get there first, cause there’s no way you’re beating me, bastard.”

He only see Obito’s step hesitate because he is watching for it, the stilted motion so quick that it’s quickly lost in the shinobi’s natural grace, but it’s all the confirmation that he needs.

“Watch out for this idiot, Sakura,” Obito says, leaving the words hanging in vacated air without another sound. Sakura mutters a dry “duh”, but he has already disappeared.

Naruto folds his arms, barely managing to wait ten seconds before he turns to Sakura. “That idiot doesn’t want us anywhere near the Akatsuki.”

She sits up, an annoyed frown matching Naruto’s own expression. “You  _ are _ one of the Jinchuuriki that they are hunting,” she says diplomatically. The conciliatory tone lasts as long as Naruto’s patience during a lecture does, immediately morphing into a growl as she creates a small crater in the dirt with her fist. “He’s not keeping us out of this, that’s for damn sure!”

“I couldn’t agree more, Sakura-chan.”

“You wouldn’t be planning something without the Hokage’s permission, now would you?” Naruto yelps, stumbling over Sakura’s legs as Yamato’s pale face emerges from the shadows like a phantom. “I know you know better than that, right Sakura. Naruto.”

“Yamato-taichou,” Naruto chuckles, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. “I thought you were on a patrol.”

Raising an unimpressed eyebrow, the captain answers dryly, “I was.”

After a brief moment of silence, Naruto finds he really has no reply for that. “Oh.”

Sakura has a bit more to say on the matter. “Where’s Sai?”

“Following our faux ANBU.” Crossing his arms, Yamato glares into the trees. “Obito knows more than he’s letting on. If he won’t tell us, then maybe we can glean something from where he’s going.”

____________________________________________________________________________

When Sasuke arrives at his rendezvous with Tobi, he spends ten minutes utterly motionless in a tree, watching the entire area like a hawk for even the slightest bit of movement. He tells himself to wait five minutes, and anything that seems even remotely suspicious resets his clock. He doesn’t trust his Sharingan to show him the dangers lurking around him. Tobi has showed him more than once just how fallible the supposed ‘perfect vision’ really was.

Paranoia?

Possibly.

But Sasuke would rather be safe than dead, which is exactly what he would be if Tobi caught him showing up to the rendezvous days late and acting carelessly on top of that. His only hope is that the crazy bastard got just as held up as Sasuke did and hasn’t arrived yet, which isn’t too far of a long shot considering the stupid ass ‘I was helping a granny cross the street which is why I was late and accidentally left you in the forest to fend for yourself for ten days’ excuse had been more constant than either of the psycho’s personalities in the two years Sasuke has known him.

If he was somehow, miraculously, on time to the rendezvous for once (because that was just Sasuke’s luck at this point), Sasuke would not put it past him to be hiding in the bushes ready to kick Sasuke’s ass six ways to Sunday.

But still, as each minute passes until he is riding into the double digits, Sasuke begins to doubt Tobi is here yet. Once he reaches the twelve minute mark, he decides to just bite the bullet and slithers down the tree until he’s a mere foot from the ground, where he then gives the area yet another inspection with the intent of finding tripwires or booby traps, because, once again, he would not put it past the psycho to pull something like that under the guise of ‘training’.

Still finding nothing unexpected, Sasuke carefully places both feet on the ground, letting his full weight fall on them bit by bit. He tiptoes past a couple of trip wires, ducks under some camouflaged explosive tags, and ghosts over the seals hidden on the forest floor until he comes upon a rock, about the size of his fist, half buried in the dirt.

With a simple seal, the ground swallows him whole.

It’s a relief to see the underground caverns that they call home, not that Sasuke will ever admit that to anyone in a million years. When Tobi had first dragged him down here, he had thought he would never get used to the musky smell of tree roots and decaying wood which made up the foundation of the tunnels. The pounds of dirt packed over their heads was claustrophobic, a tomb where the last Uchiha would breathe their last (no, not the  _ last _ Uchiha. Not Itachi. Sasuke would never let Itachi die, especially not in a place like that).

But now, it is something of a comfort, even if the only reason for that comfort is that Sasuke knows where all the booby traps are and doesn’t have to worry about stepping on a new one. It was Tobi’s way of making it  _ their _ home, Sasuke thinks. In this way, they could both feel safe in there.

Familiar booby traps aside, though,  _ Tobi _ was still a direct danger right now. Excuses like ‘I ran into my old team and didn’t want to leave until I knew they were safe’ didn’t really fly with Tobi.

Because Sasuke’s luck is absolute  _ shit _ and that’s just how life is, he only has enough time to think all of this before a familiar spiral in space appears mere inches from his face and he has to backpedal before the lunatic squashes him as he steps out of his dimension.

On the upside, the widening Sharingan means that Tobi is just as surprised to see Sasuke as vice versa. On the downside, just one damn minute later, and Tobi would have had no clue that Sasuke was late.

“Fucking hell,” Sasuke mutters, yanking off the ANBU mask.

Obito pulls his own mask up to rest on top of his head and crosses his arms. “You’re late.”

“I ran into a farmer who needed help rounding up her chickens,” Sasuke snarked, stalking down the hallway. He subconsciously sidestepped a protruding tree root without a single hitch in his step and ignored Obito trailing behind him with a heavy presence that was unavoidable.

“Oi brat, that’s my line.” Obito simply phases himself through the tree root and Sasuke scowled at the show-off. Something seemed off about him. There was less ass-kicking, for one. Being late was a no-go, especially on a mission like this. Sasuke doesn’t reply. Instead, he strides into the kitchen and roots through the cupboards for something that isn’t rations. “You’re being even more angsty than usual. And I see a distinct lack of snake head like you promised me.”

Obito waits until Sasuke throws the instant ramen packet on the table and slumps into a chair with a scowl before he leans forward and towers over Sasuke.

“So what part of the mission did you fuck up?”

Sasuke can’t even bring himself to be indignant about that remark. He drops his head into his arms with a groan. “Fucking all of it.”

The cuff on the back of his head bruises his nose against his arms. “I need a report, brat, not a useless pity party.”

Sasuke knows better than to censor any part of his report. He tells Obito every mistake, every holdup, since the moment they split ways weeks ago.

While he talks, Sasuke moves around the kitchen, putting a pan of water on the stove and heating it to an instant boil using a fireball (according to Obito, “it’s only a stupid idea if you end up burning down the kitchen”) before adding the water to the instant ramen.

The lack of unnecessary commentary— the “oooooh you screwed up” and the “oh shit kid” and the “you froze? What are you, five?” — spoke more words towards the gravity of the situation than the absent look on Obito’s face would suggest. Not that Sasuke needs any more elaboration on that.

Sasuke finishes the report with a summary of his parting conversation with Danzo’s puppet and the conclusion that “He may be a creepy ass kid, but even he isn’t immune to the idiot’s optimistic bullshit.” He sets the bowl on the table and collapses into the unoccupied chair. “Just give him time and he’ll be right on the Naruto bandwagon.”

Obito’s hand pulls the bowl away before he manages a single bite. Sasuke tenses instantly, ready for divine retribution and a play by play of all the other things he screwed up on. He briefly considers that Obito might choose to throw the steaming ramen into Sasuke’s face rather than allowing him to have it, but rejects that as too petty and wasteful for Obito.

Silence hangs in the air, a tense moment ready for action by both parties.

Finally, Obito leans toward Sasuke, his hand extended in… a slap? a flick? a shot at Sasuke’s Sharingan? (okay, the last one was just about as likely as Pein walking through their door and calling truce, even with Obito missing an eye). Sasuke decides to cut his losses and shuts his eyes, keeping himself still.

It’s probably a flick. If Obito was pissed enough to slap him around, he would start an impromptu training session and not bother with any other half-assed bullshit. That means it’s definitely a flick-

A hand ruffles through Sasuke’s greasy hair for only a second before pulling away.

Sasuke’s eyes open in time to catch Obito withdrawing, otherwise he wouldn’t have believed the gesture could have come from the other Uchiha.

“Obito?” The voice that comes out is so small and lacking in brashness that Sasuke almost doesn’t recognize it as his own.

Obito simply leans back and runs his hands through his overgrown hair, throwing his mask onto the table beside Sasuke’s discarded ANBU mask with a sigh. “Looks like we both fucked up, kid.”

That means- “Zetsu-”

“In the wind. Again. And that’s not all.” He runs his hands through his hair again. “He’s not going to concede to Pein’s revenge trip for much longer. This shitshow is going to get a hell of a lot shittier.”

“Finally,” Sasuke says, crossing his arms. Obito looks up with something akin to surprise creasing his scarred face. “I was getting bored with the whole cat and mouse thing.”

Obito smiles, if it can be called that. It’s just the slightest tip of his lip, the smallest glint in his eye. “You’re right.” He leans forward to grab the forgotten ramen bowl. Sasuke’s mirrors him, hand extended to accept the finally conceded dish.

But Sasuke’s hand remains empty. Obito leans back with the bowl cradled to his chest, chopsticks already lifting steaming noodles to his mouth. Just before he actually eats, he makes eye contact with Sasuke, a smug ass look on his face. “It’s time we went on the attack.”

Stunned by the sheer assholeness and audacity of Obito (though why he wasn’t expecting it he could not answer), Sasuke spends several seconds gaping like a fish as Obito devours Sasuke’s meal.

“Give that back,” Sasuke finally growls, lunging across the table and grabbing for the bowl that Obito dances out of his reach.

“I’m hungry, brat. Go find your own food.” The older shinobi pushes off of the table and sends his chair skidding further from Sasuke’s reach.

He doesn’t even register the conscious decision to draw his kunai. “You’re half plant, freak. You don’t need food.” He steps onto the table. “And  _ that _ is mine.”

Obito smirks and Sasuke’s blood pressure skyrockets. “Come take it from me then, brat.”

____________________________________________________________________________

There’s a not-so-friendly rock digging into Sasuke’s shoulder blade and an arm across his throat keeping him from shifting off of it. He shifts his hips slightly to the left in an attempt at compromise, but the rock rolls with him, digging in even deeper and making a general nuisance of itself.

“Wanna tell me how this happened?” Obito says lightly, allowing Sasuke to shift under him but still keeping him firmly pinned to the floor.

“Your Sharingan is an overpowered cheat is what happened,” Sasuke snarls. He looks directly into the swirling Mangekyou Sharingan, unafraid of any illusions Obito might decide to throw at him. Sasuke may be shit at genjutsu, but Obito’s even shittier, and Sasuke has Itachi, the one true master of all genjutsu, as a brother, so genjutsu is the one thing Sasuke doesn’t have to fear from Obito.

Obito hums. “Well, I’m sure Pein will take your complaint under advisement when you decide to whine about the Rinnegan.” He raises his crooked eyebrow with a deadpan expression.

“He’s less of an asshole than you, that’s for damn sure.”

“That hurts.” The older shinobi holds a hand over his chest and Sasuke rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, you know what else hurts? The extra crispy exploded meatsack that you’re shoving into the ground right now!”

Obito chuckles but lets Sasuke sit up and free himself from the not-so-friendly rock. “Your run-in with Deidara didn’t do so hot, then?”

Sasuke glances forlornly at the table, which was overturned in the scuffled. Lying pathetically beside it is the shattered remains of what once was a ramen bowl. He closes his eyes and allows himself to collapse back onto the floor, making quick reintroductions with the rock. It takes a couple of seconds before he works up the energy to lift his hips and root around under himself for the offender.

“Injuries?”

The rock launches across the room and slams into the wall hard enough to split into dust.

Sasuke scoffs. “Is that concern, old man?” His eyes flicker up in time to catch the disgruntled furrow to Obito’s brow before it smoothes over again. Sasuke closes his eyes. “It’s not me you should be worried about. What was that bullshit you pulled just now? Pein isn’t gonna take your arthritic joints into consideration when decides exactly what Rinnegan power he wants to use to murder you.”

“What does it say about you that I still beat you?” Despite his words, the shinobi’s tone isn’t argumentative. It is world-weary in the way that a thousand year old spirit would be expected to be. The older man sounded like that more and more recently. Sasuke may have been exaggerating about the arthritis, but this was real.

A disturbance of the air followed by a dull thud tells Sasuke that Obito collapsed beside him.

Easy silence reigns for so long that Sasuke begins to drift off, his eyes snapping open only when Obito lets out a long groan.

“What’s the plan?” Sasuke asks, allowing his eyes to drift shut again but keeping his ears open.

“Hmm?” That's his  _ 'I am just a braindamaged idiot, what makes you think I have anything resembling a plan?'  _ hmm.

Sasuke hasn’t fallen for that innocent bullshit in months and he isn’t about to start now. “The suicide mission you were cooking up while I was beating your ass.”

Obito laughs, a dry, patronizing sound he uses when he’s twenty steps ahead of everyone else and is just waiting for everyone else to catch up.

It makes Sasuke want to beat his face in.

He just barely works up the sheer annoyance to roll off the ground and go for one of the discarded kunai lodged in the wall when Obito’s tone turns heavy.

“There are too many paths they’re going to approach, each one with its own dire consequences. It’s not a shogi game with two sides anymore. It’s a web of alliances and deceit that spans the entirety of the continent.”

Sasuke pulls himself into a sitting position leaning against the wall and watches Obito’s brow furrow in a scowl. It brings his scars into stark clarity, twisting them into spirals of shadow.

“I paid too much attention to Zetsu,” Obito says, the admission causing his scowl to grow even deeper. “He’s the originator, but he’s not the only fulcrum anymore.”

A mirror frown appears on Sasuke’s face at the implication of war on multiple fronts. If there was one thing Obito had taught Sasuke, it was that split attention got you killed.

With a grunt, Obito swings himself into a sitting position sitting across from Sasuke. Leaning forward, he jabs a finger into the floor to the left of Sasuke. “There’s Zetsu and his mommy issues.” He moves his finger to the center of his crossed legs. “Pein’s world domination schtick.”

“Waylaid by his revenge tangent,” Sasuke points out.

Obito nods, but the expression on his face doesn’t follow the optimism. “But not for any longer, I think.” His finger plants itself to the right of Sasuke’s knee. “Now we have Orochimaru. Scientist, immoral snake, and, most importantly, unabashed necromancer.”

“ _ And _ ,” Sasuke adds pointedly, “Still in the market for an Uchiha body.”

“Relax,” Obito says, rolling his eye. “You’re in more danger than Itachi is right now. Pein isn’t gonna let Orochimaru touch him unless if Itachi gives him a good reason to.”

Sasuke raises an eyebrow. “A good reason. You mean like spying on his every move and conspiring with his sworn enemy and ultimately holding up his ‘world domination schtick’?” insert appropriate air quotes here, “That kind of good reason?”

Obito’s head hits the wall with a  _ thonk _ and he groans. “Fucking hell, this again.” His head comes back up so he can fix Sasuke with an annoyed glare. “You get like this every fucking time. It’s like you’re his overprotective nanny rather than his little brother-”

The kunai goes right for Obito’s covered empty eye socket. He ducks rather than Kamui’s through it, a pretty big sign of just how worn out he is, but Sasuke can’t bring himself to care under his seething anger. Frowning, the older shinobi reaches up to touch the shell of his ear and his hand comes away bloody.

“You know,  _ Tobi _ , I just got a blast from the past for the last month,” Sasuke hisses. “and it brought up a couple of old  _ memories _ . Like the entire nightmare my childhood was because of  _ you _ -”

“-Oh grow  _ up _ , Sasuke-”

“And then this  _ bullshit _ making me wonder why the hell I’m wasting my time with a sadistic maniac fuck like  _ you _ -”

Obito shoots to his feet, his Sharingan glowing as finally his temper reaches its peak and he snears “Maybe you should just go play house with  _ Team Seven _ and wait for this clusterfuck to come knocking at your door instead. Go running home with your tail between your legs.”

The effort it takes to remain sitting with electricity shooting through Sasuke’s spine telling him to  _ run _ ,  _ fight _ ,  _ do something, _ is monumentous, but he manages to avoid mirroring the angered shinobi. Words are boiling in his mouth and he knows that if he lets them out they will lash into Obito just as Obito’s dug into him so he keeps his mouth shut and glares.

The fight drains out of Obito in the silence, and when he slides back down the wall with a heavy  _ thump _ he looks completely drained of energy.

Neither of them attempt to break the silence, avoiding words as desperately as they avoid eye contact until Sasuke finally finds words that aren’t Uchiha brand inflammatory. “I’m here,” he says.

It’s not Uchiha brand inflammatory but it sure is Uchiha brand stoic. Two syllables shouldn’t be enough to communicate anything worth saying, but Obito is an Uchiha too, despite how much Sasuke pretends to forget that fact, so he  _ gets it _ in the same way Sasuke  _ gets _ the single nod given in return.

They take a few more seconds to just breathe, but then it’s back to work as usual because explosions like these happen every other Tuesday (upside to spending these last few months on his own, Sasuke didn’t have to spend hours keeping their home from collapsing from structural damage. The downside was that he didn’t have a human punching bag in his general vicinity, and snakes only work so much as a substitute).

“So we have those three, and then we have our four FUBAR antiheroes, and all of our corresponding webs,” Obito recaps briefly. “We’ve both been off the map for a while, so we’re going to need to spend some time getting back into contact with everyone.”

Obito’s eye flicks up to meet Sasuke’s, a frankly terrifying grin on his face. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to wait around for that to happen and give the Akatsuki time to settle their new member and all the minions that apply.”

A smirk of his own grows as Sasuke catches on. “We finally done beating around the bush?”

“Let’s lure them out of that cave they’ve been lurking in. We’ll start with making a blood trail and seeing if we can get the snake to follow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I am here! We finally got some Obito/Sasuke interaction here! Yay for dysfunctional idiots! Honestly I am so happy because we're officially to the part where they stop being on the defensive and hiding in the shadows and that's where the real fun begins. (They're kinda idiots for thinking that Konoha will be willing to stay out of it, though).
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Please continue to comment on things that you enjoyed and whatnot because they give me life and inspire me so much! Thank you for all of your support!


	6. Chosen Paths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tobi is just trying his best to be a good sensei, Sasuke picks a fight with a river, and Shikamaru risks dysentery for the sake of Konoha.

“Words fail to express my complete and utter appreciation that Orochimaru never got the chance to abuse my curse mark like he did to these sorry assholes,” Sasuke says, his lip curling in distaste. He allows the deformed curse-marked body to slide off his sword. It lands with a thump of finality and echoes in the emptiness of a recently tumultuous building.

“But Sasuke-chan,” Before he can react, Tobi wraps his arms around Sasuke’s back and bounces his weight on his shoulders, “these guys are your people, your pack, your brood.” Long since resigned to this fate, Sasuke sighs and allows the maniac to hang off of him like some sort of jungle gym. The words he ignores easily, already tuning Tobi out in favor of searching for other chakra signatures in the building.

Tobi doesn’t take to Sasuke’s silence well, leaning even further on his shoulder and getting as close to Sasuke’s face as possible. “There’s a deep connection there,” Tobi continues, “All of you have such a profound bond.”

Against his better instincts, Sasuke’s morbid curiosity provokes him into humoring Tobi. “The profound bond of getting fucked over by an Uchiha?”

He pauses there, silent with something like contemplation, before nodding furiously. “That too!”

Sasuke should have just remained silent. He shouldn’t have fed this insanity, he knows better by now, what was he thinking?

“What else?” pops out of Sasuke’s mouth before he can remember common sense.

“Why, the sheer stupidity that comes with allowing a sadistic psychopath to inject you with his special lab juice,” Tobi tells him brightly. He glances over at the surrounding bodies, all in various stages of curse mark transformation, pointedly before turning back to Sasuke. “That’s a deep bond you got there, dumbass.”

Sasuke shrugs Tobi off of him harshly. “The curse mark wasn’t my choice,” he growls. Unable to look at any of the other bodies surrounding him, he focuses a scowl at his feet.

The curse mark prickles like it knows it’s being discussed and Sasuke resists the urge to touch the tattooed part of his neck with his hand.

Tobi, watching his reaction with that analytical stare, no doubt catches the aborted movement.

“You think it was theirs?” Tobi aks with a gesture at the surrounding bodies, his voice lacking the naive laughter but not dropping from its more high pitched setting.

Sasuke continues to stare a hole into the floor. “Your point?”

“Just a reminder about the nature of the world.”

Sasuke took a breath, letting the tenseness in his shoulders roll off of him. The curse mark hadn’t been an issue for him for over a year. Most days he forgot it was even there. Tobi’s words weren’t a criticism of his search for power, but a reminder of something else. Sasuke just couldn’t figure out what, yet. Maybe the fact that Orochimaru is a cruel piece of shit that needs to go down?

Enigmatic son of a bitch.

“Stop trying to play sensei, you suck shit at it.”

It takes a few leaps over the prone corpses before Sasuke catches up to Obito already stalking down the empty hall with purposeful steps.

Obito looks back at Sasuke and says wryly, “And, yet, somehow you’re still alive.”

“No thanks to you. You threw a thirteen-year-old at every missing-nin you could possibly find.”

When they first started working together, Obito seemed to be under the impression that the best way to teach someone a lesson was to throw them headfirst at the problem and tell them to figure it out or die. Sasuke spent a hell of a lot of time getting his ass kicked and thrown through buildings while Obito offered snarky and utterly unhelpful commentary from the sidelines.

“Suffering builds character.”

Well then they have more than enough character to go around between the two of them. That might even explain the split personality shit that Obito has going on.

Keeping his silence, Sasuke looks up at the second floor of the facility to where the only remaining chakra signature remained, larger and more tempestuous than any of the shark bait they were leaving behind, and wishes that his Sharingan allowed him to see through the ceiling. Obito, curiously enough, is leading them the long way to the second floor, actually taking them through the hallways and up the stairs instead of busting through the ceiling or using Kamui, and staying suspiciously silent through it all.

That means he’s thinking of something, or possibly giving Sasuke time to think. That realization draws Sasuke’s attention back to Obito’s enigmatic comment, and he realizes he dismissed it too swiftly.

This is just how Obito works. He doesn’t point out that Sasuke relies too heavily on his Sharingan, he throws dust in his eyes until he can fight blind. He doesn’t mention that Sasuke uses ninjutsu too heavily, he sets Kisame on him until he learns taijutsu. He doesn’t suggest Sasuke learn kenjutsu, he leaves him in the middle of the Land of Iron with a bunch of samurai for three months.

He doesn’t  _ tell _ , he gives the facts and waits for Sasuke to come to his own conclusion.

Considering that Sasuke’s ass generally gets kicked when he doesn’t come to that conclusion fast enough, he’s hoping he can puzzle it out  _ before _ Obito decides to throw him in a piranha tank or something.

“Hey, Sasuke,” Obito’s voice interrupts Sasuke’s thoughts. “Don’t kill him.”

“Wha-”

Sasuke’s sword comes up seconds before the creature crashes into him. The force of it sends Sasuke skidding back until his back slams into a wall— that’ll be a nice set of bruises, this guy really packs a punch— and Sasuke channels chakra into his arms to hold off the attacker’s brute force.

He’s another cursed seal experiment, but this one is completely out of the others’ league in terms of strength, no doubt the source of the chakra he sensed earlier. Even reinforced with chakra, Sasuke still struggles to keep the guy from crushing him into paste against the wall. And this guy is only half transformed, half his face a sickly brown and glaring yellow eye, the other a far more normal skin tone, but still bearing a red eye equally as lit by mania.

“A little help, here,” Sasuke grunts, just barely making himself heard between the insane laughter of his opponent. To the side, Sasuke can see Tobi leaning against the wall and looking utterly unconcerned with this latest turn of events, and, honestly, he probably should have seen this shit coming a mile away.

“Nah, looks like you’ve got it taken care of,” Tobi replies, still not moving a single muscle even when the experiment does  _ something _ with his transformation and slams his arm against Sasuke’s sword with all the force of an avalanche.

Refusing to take that impact head on because he  _ likes _ having a working ribcage, Sasuke plants his feet on the wall and uses it to propel himself around the experiment’s back and lets the wall take the beating instead.

And  _ holy shit _ , thank  _ God _ for that decision because that hit utterly decimates the stone wall.

But Sasuke’s got a clear shot at the guy’s back now, levels his sword for a killing stroke— one hit, charged with lightning, the guy will barely feel it— and is already jabbing forward before Obito’s earlier words register and Sasuke twists his sword to skate across the experiment’s shoulder instead of into his spinal column.

Whoops.

The man roars at the new pain streaking across his shoulders, and the curse mark grows on his skin as he starts laughing again, chanting “ _ die die die” _ with a concerning amount of nonchalance at his near brush with death.

Trapping is always more difficult than killing (and the moral implications of that will be avoided to Sasuke’s last dying breath, he’s had enough philosophical lectures to last him a lifetime), so Sasuke takes several jumps back to put distance between the two of them. His curse mark throbs, almost as if it was calling out to an old friend, and Sasuke shoves it down and ignores it, because the curse mark doesn’t rule him anymore, and it was nothing but a crutch that kept him from gaining actual power.

The man takes notice of Tobi, the closer prey now that Sasuke retreated, and directs a terrifying punch at the older shinobi, not that it does anything. Tobi simply lets it phase through him, stepping past the man with absolute nonchalance and looking at Sasuke with that blank mask as if he was forced to do the most undesirable thing in the world and it was all Sasuke’s fault, which, really, just made Sasuke want to ditch the two of them to play ghost all day.

But, aside from choosing a random direction and walking for miles across a desert until he dies of heat exhaustion, there is no way for Sasuke to leave this base without Obito’s Kamui, and by now Sasuke just really wants to leave this place behind.

“Hey!”

He turns towards Sasuke again, his attention easily captured from the intangible man in front of him, and laughs as Sasuke once again brandishes his sword. He rushes Sasuke, the curse mark growing to encompass all of his face, turning his orange hair a more burnt shade and his teeth sharp and long, but it doesn’t matter because Sasuke already has him.

The poor bastard didn’t know that looking a Sharingan in the eye was a bad idea.

Sasuke may not have a Mangekyo that allows him to do Tsukuyomi like Itachi can, but that doesn’t prevent him from using a normal genjutsu to contain his prey.

The moment the man/monster slides to a stop, Sasuke whirls on Obito. “ _ Him _ ? You want  _ him _ for your little army? This fucking maniac?” he demands.

Obito hums, giving the man a once over and then directing his red stare at Sasuke. “You call a lot of people that, don’t you, Sasuke-chan? Me, Kisame, even Itachi. Seems you surround yourself with the insane.”

As Sasuke would like to point out, there are varying levels of insanity, and while Sasuke’s most recent choice of companions factor in pretty high on the chart, they aren’t psychotic homicidal maniacs (at least most of the time).

...which is probably Obito’s point.

Sasuke looks once more at the giant grin splitting the experiment’s face, the utter bloodlust in every part of his facial expression, and scowls deeply. The yellow eyes are vacant and empty, and without their ferocious glint, the look on the man’s face looks less like a psychotic killer and more just… sad. In a demented, fucked up way.

Before he can convince himself otherwise, Sasuke throws himself into his genjutsu, materializing his form beside a much calmer, greatly confused, version of the real man. He’s untransformed, a normal man with orange hair and red eyes, and Sasuke can already see how this is going to end up when he turns those confused red eyes on him.

“Who are you?”

“The guy you just attacked,” Sasuke says dryly.

His eyes grow almost comically wide. “Attacked?” he repeats, equal parts horrified and surprised, and he looks down at his hands as if he expects to find them coated in blood.

“Relax.” The command doesn’t do much for the near hyperventilation, but it does bring the man’s attention back to Sasuke. “You didn’t kill anyone.” Sasuke gestures around them. “This is a genjutsu. In the real world, you’re frozen in place. The only thing you hurt was a couple of walls.”

When the man doesn’t answer, still gaping at Sasuke like a fish out of water, Sasuke figures he needs to tone down on the sardonicism a bit. He deliberately softens his tone, and tries again. “What’s your name?”

“Juugo.”

Sasuke nods. “You can call me Tobi.”

Unlike the fuckup of a disaster that was calling himself Obito in front of his old teammates, a mistake fueled by pure panic and flashback syndrome, the name Tobi is something that the two of them have been passing around between each other ever since Sasuke’s growth spurt. When they needed to deal with other people using the Tobi persona, sometimes it really didn’t matter which of them was behind the orange mask, just as long as they played the fool correctly and didn’t acknowledge any height disparities.

(To be fair to Sasuke’s idiotic blunder with his old team, he couldn’t exactly have called himself Tobi, either, since that persona was known to several  _ very _ important people as an orange-masked idiot working for a mastermind, and not the Kiri ANBU Sasuke had presented himself as. Sasuke is still wearing said Kiri mask, but unlike the Konoha shinobi, Juugo has absolutely no one to tattle to, if he even lives long enough to try, and the people he’s gonna end up around if Obito’s plan comes to fruition already know there are two Tobis running around.)

“Tobi…” Juugo repeats. “Are you one of Orochimaru’s people? I can feel my seal on you.”

Sasuke frowns at that. “ _ Your _ seal?” It hits Sasuke the next moment, the reason why Obito decided to keep this one alive, the reason why he is more powerful than the minions downstairs. “You’re the originator of the cursed seal?”

Juugo nods slowly, looking bemused. “Yeah. Orochimaru used my chakra to make the cursed seal. You didn’t know that?”

Sasuke tilts his head up at the red sky and restrains himself from cursing up a storm. Fucking Obito. There’s no doubt he already knows this.

“No, I’m not with Orochimaru,” Sasuke says, deciding to answer Juugo’s previous question. “My partner and I raided this place. You’re free now.”

But Juugo is already shaking his head, backing up from Sasuke like he had threatened to eat him instead of telling him he was free. “No. I’m staying here. I can’t hurt people here.”

Sasuke narrows his eyes. “This facility is destroyed. You can’t stay here.”

“I don’t want to hurt people. But when I rage takes over, I can't help it, and no one can stop me without almost killing me. So I need to stay here, where that won't happen, like Orochimaru promised."

"Hate to break it to you, but that super safe cage you wanna get back to isn't all that safe anymore. You broke out of it on your own." Conjecture, but even if Sasuke’s wrong, it's irrelevant anyways. "And _ I _ stopped you. With this." Sasuke gestures at the genjutsu world to emphasize his point.

"Orochimaru lied to you. There are dozens of ways that can help you with… your problem. Genjutsu, seals, other chakra manipulation." Juugo's eyes grow wider as Sasuke talks, something like hope crawling it's way into his face. "My partner and I, we can help you."

Despite the emerging hope, Juugo still has his fair share of wariness. "In exchange for what?" He asks cautiously.

Sasuke grins wryly and dispels the genjutsu.

Juugo staggers forward, falling on his hands and knees as the transformation races from his skin like it had somewhere else it needed to be and was already an hour late.

“Ah, good. You’re back,” Obito says dryly, as if it had taken Sasuke days when it was seconds at most. Genjutsu is time wonky like that. “I assume it all went well?”

Juugo looks up from his hands, locking a stare on first Sasuke, then Obito, like if he stared hard enough he could unravel the secrets of the universe. Obito and Juugo’s eyes meet for so long that Sasuke would almost suspect Obito of throwing out a genjutsu of his own, if he wasn’t so completely shit at it. Finally, Juugo’s mouth opens, a dry croak working its way out of his abused throat. He swallows, and tries again, his voice strong despite its cracks.

“No killing. You keep me from killing anyone else, and I’ll go with you.”

Obito crouches in front of him and considers him with a shadowed eye. “I want you to protect someone. Would you fight, if that’s what was required of you?”

“I’ll fight,” Juugo says, voice unwavering, “but I won’t kill anyone, accidental or otherwise.”

Obito nods solemnly, offering a hand to the other man. “No killing,” he agrees.

In the safety of Sasuke’s own head, he registers the hypocrisy of  _ Obito _ of all people saying something like that. There’s enough evidence downstairs alone that preserving life isn’t a priority for Obito.

Once Juugo is on his feet, he takes his first glance at the surrounding rubble and immediately wilts, rightly guessing that he was in no small part related to the destruction. He sheepishly stares down at the floor to avoid Sasuke’s eyes, which, coincidentally, gives Sasuke a clear glance at the long cut across the man’s shoulder blades from Sasuke’s sword. He winces— that’ll need stitches.

Obito ignores the awkward tension between the two younger shinobi and claps a hand on Juugo’s shoulder. “So, how do you feel about Jinchuuriki?”

Sasuke just barely manages to snag Obito’s arm as Kamui spirals around them and pulls them into Obito’s dimension, but he does have time to see Juugo’s eyes grow wide and his mouth start to form the beginning of a question.

Kamui spits them out in a meadow. Juugo ends up with his face in the dirt for the second time of the day, any thought of a question immediately thrown to the wayside by the disorientation (to put it nicely) of Obito’s hack jutsu.

Sasuke gets away with only a few stumbling steps; a fumble he allows only because he’d had to lurch forward in order to catch a hold of Obito before the bastard left him behind. Obito, of course, is unaffected, and watches their varying levels of clumsiness smugly.

A glance around reveals to Sasuke that he has no idea where the fuck they are. He turns to Obito with a ‘what the fuck?’ shrug and waits for the bomb.

Obito crosses his arms. “We both have somewhere to be, and I can’t play hackney for you.”

Sasuke spends a few seconds blinking stupidly, because he had completely forgotten about that. He mentally pictures a map. His eye twitches as he connects the dots between Orochimaru’s Northern Hideout in the Land of Earth, Konoha down south, Juugo’s drop-point even further north, and Suna to the southwest. Kamui, while a truly amazing long-distance travel tool, still has its limits, and those distances were pushing it.

Still, he scowls at Obito. “I’m going to be late. Again. Because of you.”

“And  _ I’m _ gonna be late because of him,” Obito jabs a finger at a bemused Juugo, who looks like he might sincerely regret agreeing to come with them, “so suck it up. At least we’re staying consistent.”

“Consistently inconsistent,” Sasuke says wryly. Once upon a time, he showed up to everything on time, maybe even fifteen minutes early. Ha. “Where even are we?”

“Kusa.” West of Konoha, closer than Orochimaru’s Northern Hideout but not by much.

“Wait, what’s a jinchuuriki? And what just happened? How are we in Kusa?”

“Don’t worry,” Obito answers brightly, “you’ll like Han and Roushi. They’ve got a homicidal beast inside them too.”

“You’re an ass,” Sasuke tells Obito, ignoring his two companions in favor of kneeling on the ground and closing his eyes. Water soaks into the fabric of his pants, but he ignores it in favor of expanding his chakra, stretching it in the direction of Konoha.

Obito’s hand brushes Sasuke’s shoulder in something that was probably patronizing, but the sensation is fuzzy, like a caress of the wind instead of anything tangible, and Sasuke easily ignores it.

“You need practice anyways,” Obito’s muffled voice says. “The Yellow Flash could do this in battle, repeatedly.”

Sasuke’s chakra is stretched too far for him to form a coherent reply. Much farther and he might hurt himself, like overextending a limb, but he can feel the seal bearing his mark at the fringes, so he pushes just a bit further. Something snaps into place, and making the seals is nearly automatic, precision over speed.

“Hiraishin.”

______________________________________________________________________________

Shikamaru is sitting in a scuzzy bar with health code violations that have probably killed more people than most chunin have, and he is thoroughly pissed off about it.

It had been fine for the first hour— Shikamaru wasn’t a clean freak by any means, not like Ino anyway, and a bar like this is prime information gathering ground, whether through eavesdropping, bribing info out of a couple of people, or engaging in a chat or two with some significant looking individuals, and they let a sixteen year old in with no questions asked— but he had spent at least two hours too long here and if he got dysentery or something equally as nasty then he was going to murder someone.

He’s not stupid enough to nap in a place like this, but he found that if he pulled his sleeves over his hands then he could cross them on top of the counter, which worked as a pretty decent pillow. While he may have to burn the shirt later, his skin, at least, was safe from getting sanded off as a preventative measure.

If he left now, he could actually use his day off for something productive, like sleeping.

Someone slides into the seat beside Shikamaru, and Shikamaru sympathizes with the exhaustion in the person’s chakra so hard that it hurts.

That’s the only reason that he simply shifts his head so that his chin is resting on his arms and greets the man in an only slightly pissed off tone, instead of slamming the guy’s head against the bar. “Sasuke.”

“Shikamaru.”

Sasuke gestures to the barkeep, and Shikamaru’s lip curls in disgust at the filthy glass that is placed in front of him. The off-tone brown that reminds him vaguely of lake water furthers his disgust. He scoots a couple of inches away from the mixture and pulls his head away for good measure.

And immediately does a double take at the man sitting next to him. “What the hell happened to you? You get in a fight or something?”

The Uchiha is  _ plastered _ in mud and other miscellaneous debris. The majority of it is hidden under a black cloak, but even Sasuke’s face and hair isn’t exempt. His hair is frozen in spikes, and though there’s obviously been an attempt to clean his face, the edges and crevices are still encrusted in thick lines. And he looks so  _ extremely _ tired and sullen. The overall picture Shikamaru gets from him is that of a drowned cat, but since he’s a genius and all, he’s smart enough to keep his mouth shut.

Sasuke doesn’t even look at Shikamaru, instead staring despairingly at the health hazard drink in front of him. Eventually, his eyes flicker up at the Nara, and he sighs for so long that Shikamaru wonder how he has enough air in his lungs for it.

“My seal got displaced. A storm or something,” Sasuke says, rubbing his face. “Dropped me in a river.”

Don’t laugh.

“When did you turn into such a dumpster fire?”

His responding glare is half-hearted at best and fizzles out in seconds. He groans. “I take it Naruto’s been talking.”

“‘Talking’ would imply that Naruto has a decibel level lower than shouting, but yeah, I know all about the supposed Kiri ANBU his team met on their mission.” Shikamaru’s tone turns dry, and he adds innocently, “It’s too bad they never found the real Sasuke, though.”

Sasuke, with the grace of a pro, ignores the dig. “What’s the general consensus about him?”

Shikamaru shrugs. “The returning team was rather vague about the details to the general public, but Tsunade doesn’t seem too concerned by the rabid shinobi on Orochimaru’s tail. She shot down Naruto’s request to try to find him again— mostly because his idea was to throw himself at the Akatsuki and see if ‘Obito’ showed up or not— but ordered everyone to be on their guard and if we see a lone shinobi in Kiri ANBU gear running around, we’re to approach and request a meeting on behalf of the Hokage.

“Long story short, the Hokage has bigger fish to fry than one guy with a grudge match.”

Sasuke’s raised eyebrow speaks of what he thinks about that, but he doesn’t say anything about it. “What about Kakashi?”

“Hatake? What about him?”

“What did he think about it?”

Shikamaru snorts. “I’m not exactly best buds with the guy, I don’t know what he’s thinking. Which reminds me…” he leans forward, refusing to miss even the slightest facial tick, “why would you use the name of your dead cousin?”

“All my cousins are dead,” Sasuke replies sullenly, turning away from Shikamaru’s discerning stare.

Shikamaru waves that train of thought away. “Why, out of all of the names in existence, would you choose to go by the name of Hatake’s deceased teammate?” Oh, that got a reaction. Surprise. Perhaps a bit of guilt?

“It was just a name that popped into my head,” he mutters. “That’s all.”

Yeah, sure. Acknowledging that he isn’t going to get anything out of Sasuke regarding the matter, but marking it down as suspicious as fuck, Shikamaru leans back in his seat. “So what’s the deal with Orochimaru?”

Sasuke winces. “The upside is that you have one less wild card running around. The downside is that there’s a couple more Akatsuki running around.”

“He’s joined up with them officially, then?” That’s… troublesome. Akatsuki’s already strong enough without throwing a Hokage-killer into the fold. And Sasuke’s upside is a load of shit, because Orochimaru, while dangerous on his own, wasn’t specifically a threat to the village at the moment.

“From what we can tell, Orochimaru’s relocated his heaviest hitters to the Akatsuki’s base to do with as they please. Tobi and I have been raiding several of the snake’s bases, but they’re mainly small fry.” Shikamaru idly wonders what Sasuke considers ‘small fry’ and decides that he’s just glad they’re already dealt with. “The base we hit today, though— that’s why I was late— specialized with the curse mark. He still has most of his research, but we took his test subjects from him, so he’s gonna have to start from scratch.” Sasuke’s lips peel away from his teeth in a vindictive sneer, sounding just a bit too pleased at the thought.

“That must be nice. Getting some personal payback for that,” Shikamaru comments, diligently not looking at the neck that no doubt bears that curse mark still.

Sasuke goes still for several seconds. When he moves again, he doesn’t bother trying to hide the fact that it’s an evasion when he switches tracks. “Why wasn’t Kakashi on the mission with Naruto and Sakura?”

That gets a reaction of surprise out of Shikamaru. “You don’t know? And here I thought you knew whenever an Akatsuki sneezed.”

Sasuke shifts in his seat. “Yeah, well, I’ve been pretty deep underground for a while.”

Shikamaru hums in reply to that. “Hidan showed up, about twenty miles west of Konoha. He was heading further west and avoiding Konoha, best we could tell, but Tsunade decided to take advantage of the fact that he appeared to be alone and sent Asuma, Hatake and a couple of others to round him up. It wasn’t long after that that we got the tip about Orochimaru’s hideout, so Yamato was assigned to lead Naruto’s team while Hatake was gone.”

He has Sasuke’s full attention now, something that Shikamaru is hesitant to label as concern vibrating under his skin, but Shikamaru doesn’t continue. Instead, he meets Sasuke’s stare with the most apathetic expression he can manage, which is pretty damn apathetic, and waits.

Sasuke’s not an idiot, which is one of the reasons Shikamaru can tolerate him even after that whole betrayal fiasco, and reads Shikamaru’s intention after a few delayed seconds.

“You holding out on me, Nara?” he sounds almost impressed.

“Yeah, that sounds about right.”

Sasuke traces the edge of his glass on the table thoughtfully. “What do you want?”

“Asuma almost died,” Shikamaru says, and he can’t quite keep the crack out of his voice. “Almost got stabbed in the back by the immortal bastard.” He doesn’t even try to keep the accusation out of his voice. “I’m sure you were well aware he’s immortal.”

As a credit to Sasuke, his expression goes completely solemn at the news. Or maybe it’s Shikamaru’s unspoken demand. “You want more information on the Akatsuki.”

“I want that entire bingo book you’ve amassed about them.”

Sasuke runs his hand through his hair. Flakes of dried mud drift onto the table. “You know why I can’t do that.”

“Yeah, and it’s made sense for the last two years. But things are moving, and now ignorance isn’t gonna keep the Akatsuki off of our back, it’s just gonna make us unprepared when we fight them. Sasuke,” his eyes flicker up from the tabletop to meet Shikamaru’s, and he hopes to God he can read the sincerity in them, “you know I’m right.”

For a long while, Sasuke does nothing but look at Shikamaru, but he can see the agreement in the Uchiha’s face.

“I have to talk to Tobi first.”

“ _ You _ waiting for someone else’s permission? I never thought I’d see the day.” And just like that, the tension breaks. Shikamaru’s satisfied because he knows that Sasuke actually will advocate it, and that Tobi would be smart enough to agree with Shikamaru’s own reasoning.

“You try killing him and then tell me that I could ignore his orders.” Shikamaru snorts, and Sasuke’s lips twitch up. “I assume Hidan got away.”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck.”

“Jiraya’s heading out west to see if he can pick up the trail,” Shikamaru offers. He frowns, deciding to quit beating around the bush. “Sasuke. Something big’s happening.”

He hums in agreement. “Everything’s moving a lot faster now.” Sasuke turns in his chair, fixing Shikamaru with a manic gleam in his eyes. “Tobi and I are taking the fight to them. No more reactive bullshit. We’ve been hitting Orochimaru’s bases back to back. Now we’re just waiting for them to take the bait.”

Two people against the entirety of Akatsuki. That sounds appropriately dramatic for Sasuke’s usual MO.

Shikamaru hits Sasuke’s shoulder fondly, then stands with a sigh. “Don’t die, Uchiha. Finding another informant would be so troublesome, and I want that bingo book.”

Sasuke offers him a half-assed salute as Shikamaru finally moves to leave the scuzzy bar. “No promises.”

Shikamaru kicks the heavy door closed and glares down the street. “How troublesome.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear these chapters just get progressively longer each time I post. In my notes, I just called this chapter "fucking up all of Orochimaru's shit" and it turned into kidnapping Juugo.
> 
> “Words fail to express my complete and utter appreciation that Orochimaru never got the chance to abuse my curse mark like he did to these sorry assholes” "But that's all words do"
> 
> But so many new things were revealed! I hope you guys caught most of them, but even if you didn't it'll probably be mentioned a bit later as well. I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please feel free to comment any questions or comments you have. I can't promise I'll answer every question as I want to avoid spoilers, but I'm happy to clarify if I failed to address something.
> 
> You guys are so fucking amazing, I could not do this without you! Those comments give me so much joy in this world.


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